Fraternizing with the Enemy
by Dr. Q. Uirk
Summary: What happens when a dedicated American Soldier and patriot crosses paths with a mentally unbalanced German Medic in 1968? Something very bad for the well-being of the general public; that's what. Previously: Friend Like Me
1. Definitely Not a Spy

There are many kinds of stories in this world, but not all of them are worth hearing. In fact, some should never be told at all, but be assured knowing that this is a story worth hearing. And like any story worth hearing, it began with a knife to the back.

It's a purely figurative phrase, of course, because as much as the Australian - who wasn't in the least bit French - would have liked to slide a knife between the sluggish American's shoulder blades, he had more important things to worry about; like where the hell the other American was. The laborer. His paper mask could attest to this, as it was sticking to his face from the heat of the Gravel Pit sun. It had to be now, or else he'd die on the roof of a shack from either heat stroke or this horrible Australian accent.

"Oi, mate, ya sure that y'don't know where the Engineer is?"

The RED Soldier gritted his teeth; he'd just about had enough of the chatty Australian in his expensive, blue, pinstriped suit.

"If you love him so damn much, marry him! He told me to sit on the damn rooftop and watch his damn stuff, and then he left! Damn it!"

Clearly Soldier's excessive use of the word damn had carried his point across as was proved when the Sniper - who was definitely not a Spy, fell silent.

The Sniper - who still wasn't a Spy – however, seemed to have developed an unexplainable muscle spasm that was causing his arm to make random stabbing motions at the wide and very exposed back in front of him. Making a mental note to visit Medic later, he decided that his immanent death by Australian accent was less worrying than being driven insane by a half crazy American wielding a shovel. They were alone at the B control point after all, and from the sounds coming from A, both teams were too engrossed in battle to even hear the Soldier scream. He would make short work of the sentry, dispenser, and then the Soldier himself. He'd leave the teleporter though. It was a useful aid to getting to the roof after all. One day, he would find out how the RED Engineer managed it time-and-time again. Then the Sniper - who was definitely a Spy - pulled out his Sapper.

Soldier was wondering what the irritating buzzing sounds behind him were and was just about to tell the Australian - who was actually French - to cut it out, before he really gave him a reason to make irritating buzzing sounds, when four things happened at once: The real Sniper came stumbling out of the tunnel that connected A and B while profusely bleeding and shouting about a Spy, the Soldier turned to watch the Sniper, so his back was no longer exposed, the Engineer came running behind Sniper shouting about sentries, and the BLU Spy smashed the butt of his revolver into the Soldier's helmet-covered skull. As the revolver connected with the Soldier's head, he realized that Sniper never wore expensive, blue, pinstriped suits.


	2. Concerning Headaches

At some point in everybody's life they need something, but upon looking for it, they find that it's not there. Not when they need it, in any case. Soldier, for example, never knew where the hell the headache pills were when he needed them. Oh sure, he'd find them when he didn't need them, but they were never there for his hangovers, or when he yelled too much, or when he got pistol-whipped by Snipers that were really Spies.

Soldier slid his fingers beneath his helmet and sought out the tender spot. All-in-all, it wasn't as bad as he had expected. He knew there was a good reason why he wore his helmet everywhere even if he couldn't always justify it to others or even himself. He pressed his fingers into his injury and suppressed a small grunt of pain because, as we all know, sounds of pain were for the weak.

Now that he was sure that he was neither dying, nor could locate headache pills the next order of business was to find out exactly where he was. He was no longer on the roof or even on the battlefield. He was in some sort of concrete room. It was oddly clean for a place that was in the middle of a war-zone. If the Soldier was prone to noticing details, he would have noticed the lingering scent of ammonia, and the walls painted white that were bright from their constant cleanings. As it was, Soldier was a man of action and pounding things with his bare fists and/or shovel. His current victim was the door that had been padlocked from the outside. As his shovel had been confiscated with the rest of his weapons, he had resorted to screaming and throwing himself against it after ripping the handle off of it had failed rather miserably.

"Let me out of here, so I can beat the living shit out of every single one of you! You BLUs can't even fight me like a man!" And it went on along that tone for a while until the BLU Spy - who was evidently sitting guard outside - could take no more.

"If I 'ave to 'ear one more word out of you - you sluggish simpleton - I will personally cut your own voice box out of your own throat."

"Oh, yeah? I'll beat you so hard that croutons and bread'll fall out of your ass, Frenchie!"

"You insolent, little—"

"Spoi!" The new voice joining the shouting fray was distinctly and genuinely Australian.

"What is it, Sniper? Can't you see that I am busy?" the BLU Spy hissed.

"What the bloody hell did you lock up in there? Where are you? We're still in the middle of a damn battle, you know."

"I have to guard, this— this—animal!"

"Can we talk somewhere else? I can't hear myself think over this bloody screaming!" yelled the BLU Sniper because unfortunately, Soldier had resumed his yelling with a renewed fervor.

When they had shut themselves inside the Resupply room, which doubled as a Respawn room, the Spy massaged his temples deliberately and slowly.

"Mon Dieu, I cannot take one more second of that American. And, bien sûr, the headache pills are never around when I actually need them."

The Sniper pulled a familiar blue-green bottle from the resupply cabinet behind them and pressed it into the Spy's hands.

"Now, what's this all about?"

Spy pulled two pills from the bottle and swallowed them dry before he spoke:

"The Soldier, the imbecile of a RED Soldier – that is exactly 'who'. He is driving me insane!"

"My God, mate. Y'didn't—"

"Oh, but I did. I didn't 'ave the time to back-stab him. In the moment, I thought that, if I couldn't kill him, I could at least salvage him and bring him back, so we could per'aps interrogate the monster, so I clubbed him with my revolver, slipped my watch around his wrist, and cloaked him. I came back for him when it was safe and lugged him all the way back here. Do you know 'ow much that brute weighs?"

When Sniper was sure that the Spy's story was done, he pulled the man forward by his very expensive suit in a sudden motion and growled, "So you locked him in the Medic's torture chamber?"

The Spy sneered and brushed the Sniper off of him, not intimidated in the least.

"Do not touch my suit. It was custom made, and it is certainly worth more than your filthy 'ide."

The Sniper calmed himself, "You're missing the point, Spoi. D'ya know what Medic uses that room for?"

The Spy composed himself as well; neither he, nor the Sniper were very passionate men as their professions of choice couldn't allow them to be. "Research," the Spy answered.

"Research, my arse. He's a bloody psycho, he is," Sniper responded a little too venomously.

The Spy detected some frayed nerves where the Medic was concerned, and being the annoyance he was, he persisted.

"So, the good doctor finally told you that storing your own urine within the vicinities of you cramped living space is both unsanitary and mentally unsound; did he?"

"Bugger off," Sniper snarled, "t'ain't none of your business, no how."

"Vraiment? Which one? Your own bodily fluids or Medic?

Sniper turned to go with gritted teeth but without giving the Spy the satisfaction of an answer.

"It does not matter;" Spy called after him, "the RED mongrel deserves whatever comes his way. Let Medic have his fun."

At this point, Sniper had already made it to the automatic door, which grated upwards eagerly for him, but turned half-way back to give Spy an apprehensive look.

"So, that's it? You're just going to let the doc 'ave him?"

The Spy shrugged in response.

"If he does not cooperate, then I suppose so."

The way Sniper tried to see it, the Spy was right; it didn't matter much. But as he headed back to battle and told himself that it wasn't any of his business, he couldn't shake the feeling of unease in his stomach that went beyond any momentary quarrel he and the team's resident doctor might have been caught up by.

This time Sniper found a perch on the concrete ledge that dropped down to the right half of A. The material was cooling under his feet with the assurance that no Spy would take him by surprise this high up.

There was a crack as the gun kicked and the RED Demoman dropped. A smile tugged at his face as one of the only people, besides the RED Soldier, who could pose a serious threat to him vanished into respawn. The RED Soldier. He lifted the scope of his rifle back up to his eye with a sigh. Of course the next target to wander into his crosshairs would be the RED Pyro who would just happen to be bothering the very same BLU Medic on his preoccupied mind. Sniper shifted the rifle's position, so he could align with the Pyro's head; instead he was forced to watch as the Medic's Bonesaw took care of its owner's problem for him.

Sniper snorted with an eye-roll unseen behind his sunglasses.

"Bloody quack."


	3. A Spoon Full of Sugar

Never in his life had Soldier been more humiliated. When he had both yelled himself horse and failed to pound through the steel door, he put Plan B into motion, which was to say that he'd given up, but he'd never admit it. He repositioned his helmet, slumped down by the door, and glared at it. He sat there so long that the Announcer declared the end of the battle. It was a BLU victory. The loss was only the second worse thing that had happened to him today. Being bested by a man who hid in the shadows and probably stuffed his face with bread in his spare time had definitely given the American's pride a bruising.

He snorted, "At least those maggots know that they need me." His normally powerful voice had lost a great many decibels and the Soldier had started to sound a bit like a dying frog. This was entirely too much for the poor man, and after hearing himself speak once, he made a conscious decision that he hadn't made in a long time: he shut his mouth.

"I do believe that the mongrel has died," said a very smug Frenchie kind of voice from beyond the door.

Quite forgetting his very solemn decision to stop talking, the Soldier growled, "Why don't you say that to my face?" Only it wasn't so much of a growl as a gravelly whisper. Still, gravelly whispers were very manly, as far as Soldier was concerned.

Obviously the Spy disagreed. This, of course, made him very unmanly. The Spy simply couldn't control his laughter. "Oh, mon Dieu! What was that Soldier? I can't believe it! The mongrel has actually out-barked himself! Not only is he unskilled, but now he doesn't even have a mouth to back it up! Do not worry, mongrel, I have every intention of saying it to your face, and more."

When Soldier heard the lock to his prison being scraped open, being a man of action, he mustered up every bit of his strength and what was left of his remaining dignity and pulled his heavily muscled right leg back as far as he could. He could practically see the French bastard now: he was bent over the door with a gleeful smile, while picking the lock – because men who couldn't kill a man to his face were probably too weak to use a key – his large Frenchie nose was just inches away from the door's steel handle. Then Soldier kicked the door as hard as he could. As luck would have it, Soldier's vision wasn't too far off.

The force of the kick certainly didn't break it open, but it did push the door far enough to connect with the Spy's face. There was a satisfying crunch and a scream, "Mon nez! My nose! The bastard!" A viscous smile broke across Soldier's face.

"America wins, again," he said in a very manly, gravelly whisper.

While Mr. Jane Doe was busy being manly, in ways his name was not, by kicking doors and breaking the noses of Frenchmen, his teammates were deciding exactly what had happened to him and what was to be done.

The RED Spy was also irritated by the Soldier. Granted, he wasn't as irritated as his BLU counterpart, but he wasn't too pleased either and neither was the Demoman.

"The coward betrayed us, I say we ought to chop his bloody head off an'—"

"C'mon Demo, I thought we already said that he didn' run out on us or nothin'. Soldier always comes through for us. I should know."

"Oh? An' what makes you so bloody qualified?"

"'Cause I'm the freakin' Scout, that's why, and if anybody's gotta problem with that—" Scout looked around the table menacingly and flexed his nonexistent muscles, in the case that anybody should disagree.

"Oh, ho, ho, so just because you run around with a baseball bat—"

The Spy finally had enough, "Gentlemen!" Everyone stopped and looked at him, save for the Scout who had leapt across the table to show Demoman just how qualified his baseball bat was. Their squabbling was ignored for the most part, though the Pyro and Heavy were making bets on who would win under the table.

"We are arguing in circles. All we need to know is that we have lost both the battle and our Soldier today, and unless you wish for a pattern to develop, something needs to be done. We need a plan of action."

"And what exactly would you have us do Spy?" asked the Sniper.

"I see this as a good opportunity to better ourselves. We can use this misfortune as a chance to expand—"

"Don't try and sell us nothing, Spy, just cut to it," Sniper interrupted.

Spy raised an eyebrow at the Sniper, "I say: we replace him." This of course, threatened to cause more uproar, if that was at all possible, when the Engineer spoke up just in time to deflect it.

"Now hold on just a second, I've been holding my tongue this entire time, knowing that these meetings generally don't do squat," he gestured to the Scout and Demoman, who was now saying something derogatory about Scout's mother in between drunken punches. "But I'm not going to stand here and watch you just replace Soldier like that. He may be a right pain in the ass," here there was a general murmur of agreement around the table, "but he's still our teammate."

"I appreciate your sense of loyalty, Engineer, but we don't even have an idea where he has run off to. What do you suggest we do? Tell the Administrator that we lost our resident maniac with a rocket-launcher, or storm the BLU base in some foolish rescue attempt?"

"Actually, that last option doesn't sound too bad."

"Uhh-huh," agreed the Pyro.

The Spy looked around the table at all the faces in agreement with the Engineer. "You are all crazy. And on what grounds are we wasting time and effort? Because he is a good teammate?" Some of the mercenaries shifted guiltily, the Spy was right of course, as usual.

"Heck naw." The Engineer was determined not to give up.

Smug as always, the Spy put one of his cigarettes to his lips and flicked a lighter open. He chuckled, "This will be good, come laborer, what reason could you possibly give me?"

"I think that the BLU Spy may have gotten the best of him." There was an air of interest at the table; even the Demoman and Scout had paused for a moment to listen.

The Spy frowned a little; he knew when he had been defeated. "You bring this up now?"

"Well shoot, it ain't like y'fellas woulda listened to me in between your squabbling. Now, here's what I propose we do—"

The Spy, of course, wasn't paying much attention. Leave it to the _laborer_ to come up with something like that. He sighed inwardly, and this had been his chance to do away with the Soldier once and for all. Spy supposed he would just have to cut his losses; the Soldier wasn't so bad, he supposed. He was one of the reasons they won as often as they did, after all. There were worse things, thought the Spy. He could have lost the argument less gracefully. He could have his nose broken, or something, God forbid. However, the Spy thought a little too soon. The Demoman and Scout had resumed their fight. The Bostonian was losing, but you didn't get wailed on by seven older brothers almost daily and not know something about resourcefulness.

To this day, no one in the RED team could be exactly sure about what had happened, but the next thing they knew, the table was overturned and mercenaries were scattering everywhere. As for the Spy, there was injury added to insult. He must have gotten clipped by the table at some point because when everybody had calmed, there he was; he was standing perfectly still with his mouth just slightly open in what was assumed to be shock, but the most fascinating and coincidental part was the blood dripping from his now broken nose.

"You got _blood_ on my _suit_," he said, as though he still couldn't believe what had happened.

With a whoop and a yell that would have made Soldier proud, Scout shouted, "America wins, again!"

The BLU Spy's day was getting increasingly worse. He'd patched up his nose himself; visiting the Medic meant having to put up with the German's enthusiasm, which barely kept within the boundaries of mental stability on a good day. No, the doctor would have to wait until he was ready to handle him.

The first thing he did as soon as he was done picking the lock, next time he'd just ask Medic for the idiotic key, was pull out his revolver and shoot out both of the Soldier's kneecaps, which was done with a Medic-esque kind of glee. The second course of action was to drag him to the middle of the room and ask all the possible questions he could think of that would be any use against RED for two straight hours. From this he gleaned three things. The only one that was of any use to him was that the Soldier knew absolutely nothing that BLU already didn't know. Despite the man's insistence that "Soldiers don't talk," he was easier to read than a children's book. The other two things were that: "French people aren't good for anything besides bread and surrendering," and the next time the Spy decided to submit himself to this kind of torture, he would bring the BLU Soldier with him. At the very least, the RED mongrel could be forced to swallow some of his own medicine.

Spy thought he at least owed his frayed nerves a bottle of wine and was going to treat them to the very expensive, very imported, very French bottle he had stashed away for such occasions when he heard the voice of someone who was soon going to become his savior. In the midst of slipping quietly past the half-drunken, celebrating mercenaries, his angel of mercy called out to him.

Ironically enough, it was the very same German he'd been avoiding for the most part of the evening.

"Spy?"

He sighed, "Salut, doctor. Do you require something?"

"Whatever did you do to your nose?" Medic asked while peering at it over his glasses.

Staring at the doctor's glasses glinting in the light, something occurred to the Spy. He had planned to tell Medic about the patient he'd secured for him, but he had decided to put off seeing the somewhat less than sane German until the morning. He saw no reason to delay any longer, because as much as he'd love to see the American mongrel choke on his own medicine, he'd love to watch him try and stomach the Medic's particular brand of medicine even more. The Frenchman knew that he'd need a lot more than a spoon full of sugar to make it go down.

The Spy adjusted his tie and smiled at the good doctor, "I was just on my way to see you."

For the first time today, things were finally looking up.


	4. The Unexpected Plot Twist

It's a general rule in life that most kids don't like going to the doctor. It's a curious fear, to be sure, because the worst thing that anyone has probably ever suffered at the hands of a doctor is the annual flu shot. The ironic thing is: people go to the doctor because they're afraid of getting sick or otherwise dying miserably of some disease, yet they fear the very person who can save them from a very miserable, disease related death. The safest assumption as to why this phobia exists is because people like the BLU Medic exist; mind you, the RED Medic wasn't much better either.

The BLU Medic wasn't the type of man who put much stock by the act of bribing his patients with lollipops, stickers, or anesthesia. Never-the-less, he could be an outstanding medic when he wasn't busy trying out his various types of research that were somewhat questionable in terms of both legality and sanity. Most of this was done in a small, makeshift hospital located just behind the BLU respawn area. Here, Medic could usually find a little bit of solace in between the constant cycle of mindless shooting and more mindless shooting.

Tonight though, Medic was just tired, if not a little curious about the Spy's current predicament. The majority of the Spy's problems usually involved some sort of head trauma. No matter if the Spy's head was getting added to the RED Soldier's collection of heads, getting blown off by his own teammates, or turning up in the RED Medic's refrigerator, the BLU Medic always managed to get a kick out of it. He had to say, the Spy's nose was a little disappointing after the man's previous track record. Of course, it's a perfectly normal thing for your regular doctor to wish that you had maimed yourself in some worse way, so Medic's present dejected attitude could be excused.

"Cheers, doctor," said the Spy, who did the customary action of feeling the recently fixed body part like he expected it to have fallen off or something else of that nature. Thankfully, it hadn't. Medic nodded in response to Spy's thanks and took a seat on a nearby gurney. The day's victory had come with a lot of work, especially on his part, and it wasn't like the RED Medic had to actually use other weapons, like the BLU Medic, besides the verdammte Quick-Fix that he was so fond of. Schweinehund.

"Medic?" asked the Spy curtly, as he drew Medic out of his thoughts.

"Ja?"

"I did mention that I had something for you that might be of some interest, correct?"

"Yes." Medic was starting to become annoyed. Spy always found some way to be indirect; no matter what he wanted to say. He could make ordering a salad into haphazard guesswork. An evil of the profession, though it may be, it was a damn pain for whichever poor soul happened to be on the other end of it.

"Do you still have the key for that little concrete shack you're so fond of?"

"What is this about, Spy?"

"In due time, doctor. Follow me, if you please." Maybe the RED Medic wasn't the schweinehund, after all.

The two men stepped outside, where a blast of hot air greeted them. It was twilight; a good kind of twilight. It wasn't the kind of twilight that was haunted by the sparkling vampires that sometimes lingered on the edges of Soldier's sleep deprived nightmares. However, rooms without windows generally had a one hundred percent chance of impairing vision, so Soldier generally had a one hundred percent chance of not knowing what time of day it was. Right now, Soldier was more focused on what had become of his knees. He'd suffered pain like nothing he'd ever felt before during his employment with RED, but he'd never had to wait long to be put out of his misery. Whether it was respawn or the RED Nazi that they called "Medic", he was always kept in relative comfort for a man who was paid large sums of money to be blown up by the other team on a daily basis. Sitting around with his knee-caps shattered, by a crouton with a gun – no less, was both painfully embarrassing and painfully painful.

At this time, the BLU Spy and Medic had reached Soldier's makeshift prison and the lock was being opened; this time the device used was a key, so further nose-breaking was prevented by the use of this object - never mind about his shattered knee caps; any blue-blooded American could work with those.

But as the lock clicked open, Soldier quite forgot any thoughts of revenge he harbored against the crouton because before him was a familiar silhouette. It was one that had saved his life many times, no matter how grudgingly he felt about it, but it was probably too much to hope that the RED Medic had found him. Fucking BLU Nazi. With some sort of noise that was probably meant to be a growl, Soldier tried to spring to his feet but his body decided to betray him. With protests of pain, his knees failed half-way up, and he fell very unceremoniously onto his face. The French bastard must have put some sort of hippie poison in them because that's a perfectly logical explanation as to why he was unable to move with two shattered knee caps.

Then the Nazi began to speak, "Spy. This is wunderbar. How did you—"

"I assure you, doctor, it is nothing worth hearing. But, if it pleases you, you may keep him." Spy gave the Soldier a nasty smirk, which was made all the more annoying by the lighting provided by the single bare bulb.

Medic's expression was more akin to a child that had just been told that he'd been given a puppy or some other small animal. Ignoring the Spy, Medic walked forward to examine his new pet, which was pulling himself backwards in a retreat effort while mumbling something which included the words fuck and Nazi repeated several times. To this Medic merely chuckled.

"He has a temper doesn't he?"

Spy snorted. "You could say that."

"Good. He's strong both physically and mentally."

"Respect it, Nazi," Soldier growled at him. Unfortunately his voice hadn't regained full power, and he went from sounding like a dying frog to a twelve year-old, who had just hit puberty; voice-cracks included.

"So what my teammates say about you is true: You do have no fear," Medic paused to chuckle, "Or you're just eien dummkopf. How would you Americans say it? Stupid?"

Soldier just glared at him; the sound of his voice had shut him up, again, but if anyone thought he would just take insults from a German-hippie-worm like the Medic, they were wrong.

Once Medic was satisfied that Soldier was done talking and sliding across the floor, he walked around him a few times to assess him. The knee caps were in bad shape and would have to be exchanged for a better form of restraint.

"Spy?"

"Yes, doctor?"

"Kindly fetch me some things from the hospital, bitte."

"What do you require?" asked the Spy, who had lit a cigarette and was now smoking it smugly.

"An extra Medi Kit, one of my needles, and one of the little bottles in my desk drawer, and ah—Do we still have the straitjacket from that time when-?"

"_Yes_," said the Spy while adding a very non-suspicious cough at the end, that wasn't covering up any painful grimace of a memory the entire team had tried to forget, that definitely was not caused by the Scout and too much Bonk.

"Anything else?"

"If I think of something else, I'll send you back."

Spy rolled his eyes. He was not pleased by the idea that someone of his caliber was to be used as an errand boy for the whims of a mad German, but if it meant that the mongrel got what he deserved, then he could make a small exception.

"Move! Schnell!"

Spy cursed quietly; never again would he ever pistol whip someone. That was a promise.

Like a good errand crouton, Spy brought back everything that Medic had asked of him, but before returning to Medic, Spy examined the bottle Medic had requested just like he'd examined Medic's drawers two minutes earlier. Unlike the drawers, there was nothing of interest about the bottle; nothing that the Spy could discern anyway. The liquid could have been water for all he knew.

Spy trotted back to Medic's side with the requested equipment.

"Danke," said Medic with a gleam in his eyes that was definitely not excitement; perhaps it was, but the Spy was trying to convince himself otherwise, seeing as Medic was eyeing him up, instead of the Soldier.

"Do you see this Spy? This is my special kind of medicine."

"That's nice Medic," Spy interjected, quickly. He would have said more had Medic not raised an eyebrow at him. If there was one thing the Spy and Medic had in common: it was a need to be overbearingly melodramatic in an overbearingly clichéd way.

Medic continued with a gentle purr interwoven into his guttural accent, "I formulated it myself. Do you know what I make it with to give it an extra kick?" Spy's eyes locked onto the Medic's. He knew exactly what the German was doing.

"Hemlock." He was trying to make the Soldier panic, and so far, it wasn't working. Soldier wasn't afraid of any Nazi-hippie drug, mainly because he didn't know what the hell hemlock was, and because it was a Nazi-hippie drug, and he was American.

Still Medic persisted, "I particularly like the way my enemies react to it when I shoot them with it." At this, Soldier panicked mentally. He'd never personally been at the receiving end of the BLU Nazi's Syringe Gun, but he'd heard horror stories from his teammates who'd been shot; hell, he'd watch them get shot. He'd seen the ways they would start to freeze before his very eyes. He'd watch their bodies stop responding to their owner's commands, and he'd always blow the Nazi straight back to respawn before it could happen to him. It seemed he'd have no such luck today; then again, he hadn't had any luck today, unless he counted getting his head bashed in lucky.

Medic broke eye contact with the Spy and looked at his bottle with a small smile. "It's not very painful, in large, concentrated amounts, but I haven't tested it in smaller amounts. I think that it could be quite uncomfortable, and, well, mixed with a few other things, who knows what it could feel like." The joke was on the Nazi. For all of his nutty degrees and medical licenses, he couldn't match wits with Soldier.

"So, do it. I'll just go right back to my team." Soldier replied with a victorious change in voice pitch.

Medic chuckled to himself like some psychotic kid who'd finished hacking his neighbor's pet cat apart, or like a perfectly normal man who was going to verbally destroy someone in an argument. This really depended on whether you were looking at it from Soldier's or Spy's point of view.

"You little fool. I never said that it was lethal, just that it would be uncomfortable."

All Soldier could do to keep his jaw from coming unhinged and falling open was to use it to yell some more. "Good! Just you wait, my team's coming for me, and when I get free, this American boot will kick your ass back to Berlin—!"

Medic silenced him with a sharp kick to the head causing the American to fall from his sitting position to his side. He grunted with a satisfying mixture of surprise and pain. Spy smirked while exhaling coiling tendrils of smoke. His lean frame braced against the concrete doorway as he watched Medic work his magic. Really, he should have thought of this sooner.

Medic now had three pair of glasses, or were there three Medics? Soldier's head spun. If he didn't have a concussion before, he certainly did now. He watched the three Medics slowly meld back into one. The real Medic's boots stepped closer and crouched beside his traumatized head.

"First: I am from Stuttgart. Second: you will remain silent, unless I say that you can speak, otherwise this," he gestured to the bottle in his hand, "will go in your jugular first. Do we understand each other?"

Soldier glared at him as an answer.

"Good. Now that we're on the same terms, I will personally do my best give you your legs back. You're no use to me in this condition," here Medic shot the Spy a venomous look, "but unless your team comes for you or the Administrator says otherwise, you belong to me." He gave the Soldier what he must have thought was a perfectly normal grin, but this time, he really did look like a psychotic kid who'd just finished hacking his neighbor's pet cat apart; no matter which point of view you looked at it from.

After an uncomfortable pause, which consisted of Soldier glaring at Medic like a rabid dog and Medic grinning back like a homicidal maniac, Medic remembered his previous restriction. "Ah—Yes. You may speak now, if you wish."

And speak Soldier did. The first thing that came out of his mouth was: "Go to hell," and ended with, "Stuttgart is a lousy place full of hippies and vampires that sparkle." Medic brought his heel down on the floor with more emphasis than needed because he was pretending that it was Soldier's face. This effectively ended Soldier's rather colorfully worded view of Medic and his homeland and began the start of Soldier's unwilling participation in Medic's research.

It had been eleven days since then. If he'd been in any state to, he would have scratched tally marks into the walls like some horribly stereotypical prison movie, but he wasn't even sure if it had been eleven days, any way. The Medic – _No, Nazi_, had told him that it was, and some distant part of him was whispering that Nazis were not to be trusted, under any circumstances.

Soldier felt kind of numb. The BLU Medic had told him the day that he'd been captured: "Seeing as you're not in the best physical shape, I'll start you with something easy." He'd had a name for it. Soldier couldn't press himself to remember it. He couldn't press himself to remember anything. Although, he did remember that he'd fought hard to escape, and that he'd injured the German pretty badly at times. He remembered that Medic had been right about Nazi-hippie drugs being uncomfortable in small, un-concentrated doses. Then there was some other Nazi-hippie drug he'd been given. There was nothing much after that. His brain could have turned into a very American combination of apple pie and Coca-Cola for all he knew. Medic had told him to sleep and had given him a spare gurney and everything. Maybe Nazis weren't so bad, he supposed. _Yes they are_, interjected the small, rebellious part of his brain.

It wasn't as if he wasn't trying, but he couldn't even remember how to sleep. Right now, he was trying to recall how he was supposed to do it. He didn't want to disappoint the Medic. That's all he was sure of right now. He didn't like the guy or anything, but he knew something bad would happen otherwise—And, dear God, the sparkling vampires were back. _Now that just isn't natural_, thought the small part of his brain. _You could write a book about those hippies and I wouldn't read it. And it probably wouldn't even be written well_, his brain added angrily. _Such hippie authors should be put out of their horrible, depraved misery that they call an imagination._

Medic saved him from his imagined vampire visitors, just then. Soldier had grown accustomed to the Medic's presence. He was the only other person besides the Spy who looked in on him, but between the two, Medic was the only one who actually gave a damn. The rest of the BLUs had gotten tired of him within a few days. He should be grateful, but the same defiant part of his brain screamed at him otherwise, and right now it was telling him to snap the hell out of it and run.

"Soldier? You are awake?"

"Sorry, doc," Soldier mumbled hurriedly. He couldn't make him mad. That's all that mattered. _He's not your doctor. He's the enemy. You'd kill him, if you were half the American you claim to be. Kill him! _

"There is nothing to be sorry for," Medic chuckled, "You've been awake for twelve days straight now, and you've been a great help to me. When you can, get some rest. I need you strong for the next experiment. Just give your system time to filter out the drugs."

So he was wrong. It had been twelve days. Soldier could feel Medic's hands and instruments checking over him. The instruments' touch still felt vaguely foreign to him, but Medic's hands could be soothing when they wanted to be. It reminded him of his mother when he was a kid. _No. Not like Mom. Never like Mom. You shouldn't be here. You should be with your team. _Team? He was so confused.

Medic watched the Soldier's eyelids flutter, and then finally close. Good. He wanted him ready for tomorrow. His knee caps were almost fully healed, and they should be somewhat functional.

Medic pulled his stethoscope from Soldier's chest. He'd gotten rid of the ridiculous helmet that Soldier was so strangely attached to. He'd let him keep the rest of his uniform on under the strait jacket, so far. It would be removed later, but he thought that the American deserved some decency; he wasn't here to torture him, after all. All Medic wanted was a human test-subject, albeit Soldier wasn't a willing one, but screw the Nuremburg Code; he was a man of science, Gott verdammt, and he would do what he wanted when he wanted. Medic groaned to himself. He'd been around the Soldier so much that he was starting to sound like him.

As Medic locked the room back up, he rubbed at his sore jaw tiredly. Soldier, despite his sleep deprivation and heavily drugged state, was surprisingly accurate with his punches and even more interesting than that: he had a very clear mind, and this intrigued Medic. He was no psychologist, but he felt a sudden intrigue into how the Soldier felt in the paniced state the drugs were meant to induce. Certainly, he hadn't felt joyful, due to the beatings Medic had taken only a few days before; unless, like a certain Austarailian that wasn't Sniper, he just expressed joy through his fists. Either way, the American was a very strange and wonderful species, and despite the various ways he had been maimed at the RED Soldier's hands, he was enjoying cracking his iron resolve. But the only reason Medic remained alive was a) the Medi Gun and b) the trance that had overwhelmed Soldier's sleep deprived conciousness, and before he retired for the night, the BLU Medic had made a mental note to take caution before he proceeded any further, but Medic, being Medic, possessed an unnatural curiousity that often put him in danger as much as it got him out of it.

And a few days later, when Soldier had finally realized that the rebellious part of his brain was, in fact, his old, non-drug-induced self speaking to him, his temperment wasn't exactly cheerful. The straitjacket was painfully easy to rip through, and he was sure that the German's spine would be too. So, when the Spy had unwittingly unlocked the door and found an understandably angry mad-man hell-bent on revenge staring back at him, it was safe to say that the respawn room had an unexpectedly, confused, French visitor. Even more confused, as to how his tenacious pet had escaped, was the Medic, who currently had two very large, anti-German hands wrapped around his throat. In fact, the only reason he hadn't died yet was because Soldier still wanted his weapons and precious helmet back. So after all this, Medic was still alive and standing in front of his team with a shotgun barrel to his head. Fan-fucking-tastic, if you asked him.

AN: I'd like to apologize for the long, non-Pyromania related delay. Okay, you caught me, it was Pyromania. So, I figured that an Über-long chapter was owed. I'd like to apologize if it has a little less sarcasm, wit, and over-all quality than usual. It was typed in between very long, sleep-deprived Pyromania sessions (no sparkly vampires included).


	5. Rocket Jump Waltz

There are many people in this world, but when it comes down to it, there are those who can meet deadlines and those who can't. But the real question here is: Why separate the people in this world by their ability to meet set dates of importance? Why not divide them as conservatives and liberals, hawks and doves, over-patriotic Americans and sadistic Germans? The answer to that question is: At some point in everyone's life, a very inconsiderate person will annoy someone else with their incredible lateness. One may come to mind right now, as the annoyed person in question stares at the words in front of them. These words spell out the long awaited continuation of the tale of an overly muscled American and his Nazi bashing adventures.

Yes, the RED Scout had been waiting since July 4th for the new copy of Captain America to be delivered to him.

He scowled at the bright comic in front of him before throwing it across the room, "Fuck this."

He lived with Captain-Fucking-America; it's not like he wanted to read about him anyway. That wasn't completely true, the Scout admitted grudgingly. The RED Soldier had moved out of the barracks in favor of some crummy apartment shared with an equally crummy magician. It wasn't like anything in the contract said they had to live in the barracks, but Scout wished that it did. At least he wouldn't be forced to share a room. Alone. With the RED Pyro. Anyone in the world was better than that thing. Sometimes he wished that his Ma lived closer or that Boston wasn't so far away, which is technically the same thing, but Scout didn't know that. Luckily for Scout, Pyro was rarely around.

"Fuckin' mail man," said Scout again, who figured that he was more of a Flash fan anyway.

It seemed that this was to be the phrase of the day among the mercenaries of both teams. For this reason, RED's planned rescue mission for a certain Soldier was postponed by ten minutes. As were the BLU team's morning routines.

It's amazing how much difference a missed deadline can make. Perhaps it may result in angry readers, but sometimes it bridges the gap between a bullet to the head and the adventure of a lifetime.

"Just shoot me, bitte," Medic requested dryly.

"I'm about to. I'm negotiating terms for your release here," the RED Soldier growled back.

"Wunderbar," Medic responded with the same amount of excitement he'd used in his previous sentence. At the rate this idiot thought at, they'd be standing there all day.

Seeing as most of the BLU team hadn't exited their barracks yet, Medic's current fate rested in the capable hands of his team's Scout, Pyro, and Demoman.

The Scout's brain didn't seem to be completely functioning yet, as he just blinked sleepily and stared at the situation before him.

"Mmph mphna mprh," said Pyro, who, as always, was fully dressed. With that said, he ran off.

"Gonnae take down to the pain train station in train town—" the Demoman belched in mid-sentence; interrupting his drunken rambling.

Medic rolled his eyes and briefly mussed if he had ever seen the Demoman sober. When he was done with that, he turned back to his current problem. The way he saw it, there were three people here he could count on to fix this: the RED Soldier, himself, and Scout. The RED Soldier was out of the question for obvious reasons. Any move he, himself, could make would result in a trip through Respawn, and unless Medic was willing to risk his very angry pet escaping, that wasn't a trip he was willing to make. The Scout was his best chance of saving both his life and his American lab-rat.

Medic tried his best to lock eyes with the Bostonian while mouthing his name.

"Hey Doc," Scout slurred out.

Medic groaned.

"Whoa! He's got a gun."

"Ja? Really?" Scout didn't seem to catch the doctor's sarcasm. Scout blinked stupidly a few more times.

Medic decided to prompt him along, "Assistance, bitte?"

"He's got a _gun_," Scout insisted as though there wasn't a resupply room full of guns and ammunition right behind him.

"Dummkopf!"

"All of you shut the hell up! I'm thinking!" the Soldier barked.

"Let us know when you're done with that." Medic snapped back irritatedly.

"I will."

"Mein Gott, I'm surrounded by idiots."

The Demoman chose the exact moment of the Pyro's return to bid his Medic farewell and good luck with his idiot problem.

The Pyro had trotted back with his flamethrower and uttered out a cry of, "Medic! Mmmphya harrgh mrgha hrghgph!"

Medic had understood only one word of the sentence, and it was his name. This could work really well for Medic or really medium-rare. Medic was betting medium-rare by the way Pyro was charging them down. Was the masked arsonist really that cold? Would it really burn a teammate as well as an enemy just to sate its sick fantasy? It took Medic all of half a second to answer his own question: Yes. Yes, it would.

Apparently Soldier had finally made up his mind as well, "Holy shit!"

And with that eloquent exclamation, he'd grabbed onto the poor Medic's arm and pulled the unwitting man along for the ride; Not that the German was objecting at this rather impromptu kidnapping.

Fear can do a number of amazing things. It can make a person trust the man who had put a shotgun to his head only seconds before. It can make someone previously fazed by the very same shotgun run head on after a psycho with a flamethrower. But most importantly, it can make someone trust the ravings of a drunken man.

Soldier wasn't the smartest of men, obviously, but he was quick to act when he needed to be, even if his course of action wasn't the best course of action. And with what he currently had in mind, that would be putting it lightly. Soldier pulled Medic through the exit marked B. If he had gone through A, he would've met his ten-minute-late rescue team, and his troubles would have presumably ended there. Presumably. But he didn't. He instead took a three foot plunge out of the BLU base until his feet hit the desert sand of RED territory. He could have wrenched Medic back to the RED base, exacted revenge, and ended this story right there. But he didn't. He had a plan ready, and Soldier always carried his plans through to the end; even if they weren't relevant to his predicament anymore.

What Soldier did do was run until the chain link fence separating his world from the outside was before him. The American then did the only thing he could do: He pulled the Medic's body flush against his while fastening his left arm securely around the German's waist. Soldier was right-handed, and he would need it. He could feel the older man's hot breath on his skin, and he was sure Medic could feel his own as well. Soldier pushed his helmet back from his eyes. He didn't know how he was going to manage this. Doing this with another man didn't feel quite right to him. It would violate the sanctity of the entire act, but it couldn't be helped; a plan was a plan. Soldier's solid blue eyes met Medic's steelier blue-grey eyes for the first time. It occurred to him just how close Medic was; his face and mouth were just inches from his own. Soldier swallowed heavily as a faint blush colored his cheeks; there was nothing to be done.

"I want you to know, I—I've never done this kind of thing before." His cheeks reddened even more, "W—with another man I mean. I—I've done it before, of course."

Medic at that moment realized exactly what Soldier going to do. With wide eyes he squirmed against the Soldier's body, but that only encouraged Soldier all the more.

"N-nein," Medic pleaded.

Ignoring Medic, Soldier pulled the German forward until his feet rested on-top of his boots. Medic's struggle stopped as he accepted his fate silently. The German pulled his arms around the American's neck, and his lips parted in anticipation. Their eyes locked one last time before Soldier shoved his helmet back down. There was no going back now. The hand that wasn't occupied with Medic reached for his rocket launcher strapped to his back. Carefully resting it on his shoulder in a way that didn't jostle the Nazi-bitch too much, Soldier then aimed it at his feet, crouched, jumped, and fired.

Thus, bringing him and his reluctant passenger to the next part of his Demoman inspired plan.

AN: A word of caution: I am a terrifically terrible updater. You have been warned. I planned to go further with this chapter, but the rocket-jumping scene did drag a bit, and I imagine that many of my readers were a little peeved by the direction it seemed to take. So with that said, I'll leave you with your thoughts and anger.


	6. Reasons Why Medic's Life Sucks

AN: Don't expect too many of these, unless absolutely necessary. I need an editor. Especially for the accents; because anyone who has played TF2 knows that they need their quirky accents. I know how to write with their dialect, just not well. If you are good at translating accents into writing, let me know because your services are called upon. Also, yes, I'm horrible at this thing we all call updating. You have permission to shoot me. And, yeah, I know this isn't the greatest chapter. It really accomplishes nothing besides plot development and random self-inserts flirting with Soldier. Again, shoot me.

Medic was going to die. Probably. But if he was, he certainly didn't feel like it. What he did feel was the wind tugging at his clothes and ruffling his hair, but Medic's problem was more internal than external. First off, his organs were in all of the wrong places. His stomach was definitely somewhere far below him, but his heart, thankfully, wasn't. Medic could feel it pounding somewhere in his throat, yet despite all of this, even wunderbar could not describe this feeling, but yeah, he was definitely going to verdammt die. He tipped his head up to the cloudy morning sky with a slight smile tugging on his lips and at his heart as if to say: I'm flying. I'm _flying_. And going to verdammt die.

As for Soldier? He was going to die. Definitely. It hadn't taken long for him to realize that something was horribly wrong with this particular rocket jump: Medic was heavy, and they were dropping fast. At the rate they were going to hit the ground at, well, he wasn't quite ready to deal with that quite yet. He could just drop the deadweight, but Soldier wasn't sure how much good that would do besides giving him something softer and squishier to break his fall on. Wait. Idea.

Soldier assessed the situation: Have we cleared the fence? Check. Got helmet? Check. Got Nazi? Check. Am I American? Check. Will this hurt? Hell yes.

Somehow still managing to keep a secure hold on his rocket launcher, Soldier began prying Medic's arms from around his neck. Medic wasn't in a position to struggle, especially not with someone who possessed more muscle than he'd ever had in his lifetime.

"Get. Off," the BLU Medic's accent had become dangerously thick.

It was all the incentive that Soldier needed. His helmet-covered eyes narrowed, "Make me."

With that, Soldier shoved the German's body away from his. Medic's hold on the American's neck was ripped away by the sheer force, and his boots scrambled to find purchase on Soldier's. The last thing Soldier saw before Medic lurched backwards were his wide blue eyes and gaping mouth. Soldier frowned; he really was too good to his impromptu prisoner. No, Medic wouldn't die; not today and not like this, but dear God, did he hope that something would go wrong with his grudging act of mercy.

"Kraut," he said in a mumble that was lost to the whooshing of the wind.

Medic barely had time to stow away his glasses before his body slammed into the abnormally large pile of gravel. He was scratched, bruised, and probably bleeding, but he wasn't dead. He was suffocating. The rocks swallowed him eagerly and were blissfully heedless to his frantic struggle beneath their surface. Who the hell needed all of this gravel anyway?

He yelped and choked on a mouthful of the rock when something hard plummeted into his shoulder. That something grabbed the collar of his dress shirt and dragged them both to the surface. As Medic very gracefully spat out his mouthful of rock, gasped for air like a madman, and nearly vomited all over himself - the gravel - and Soldier, he realized that the crazy RED idiot had probably saved his life by pushing him into the cursed rock in the first place. Probably.

"I hate you."

"You're welcome," Soldier snapped back, while sliding off of the pile. A small avalanche of gravel and angry German followed him down.

Medic steamed under the newly emerged sun. The only reason he hadn't attempted to decapitate Soldier yet was because a) he had saved his life, after all, probably, and b) the fight wouldn't end well at all for him. His temper, however, wasn't as in check as his various murderous tendencies were.

"Is your skull just thick, or do you even possess a brain? You could have killed me," Medic snarled at the Soldier.

"Yeah?" Soldier barked. His limited intelligence had just been insulted. He tramped over the German man and stared him down.

"Ja." Medic's voice was dangerously thick and low again.

Soldier faltered yet still retained his anger. He _had_ kind of hoped for the German to die, truth be told. "Yeah? Well I didn't. So there." "Nazi," he added as an afterthought.

Medic snorted in frustration and pushed his glasses back onto his face. He wanted to vomit; everything about this man made him absolutely sick. As if on command, nausea churned his stomach, which had apparently found him again. Oh, no. It couldn't happen here; not now; not in front of this maniac. Medic dropped to all fours and retched up what little he'd choked down before Solder had found him.

Soldier jumped back with an accusatory, "Watch it!" and watched Medic dry heave for a good minute. Deciding that enough was enough, Soldier strode back over to the suffering German and wrenched him up, "On your feet, Kraut!" he barked at the unfortunate Medic. "Given that you have German blood, I can understand that your body wasn't designed to be as manly as an American's," Soldier fell into his usual militaristic rant mode and started pacing before the German, who used the chance to escape and mutter words that sounded a lot like "kill me, bitte" under his breath, "but don't think that for a moment that your— Hey! That's insubordination! You are only to leave when your superiors tell you—"

Medic groaned and wound his fingers through the fence's chain links in an attempt to climb back over; he was no longer listening. He did however hear the shotgun racking dangerously close to him.

Medic snorted and twirled around violently; he no longer cared. Proud and German was what he was, and if he was to die in the middle of nowhere he would die proud and German. Then he noticed where Soldier was pointing the gun.

He chuckled darkly, "A shot to the shoulder? It won't kill me. Maybe you should lean how to threaten someone before you make a dummkopf out of yourself."

"No one gave you permission to do that," Soldier was calm.

"Do what? Make a dummkopf out of myself?"

"Negatory. You don't have the permission to die."

There wasn't one mercenary who didn't hear the crack that echoed throughout the flat desert, but the BLU Medic was the only one who felt it.

Unless you've been shot at very close range with a shotgun, it's almost impossible to understand Medic's pain. But even harder for any outside party to understand was Soldier's almost bestial pleasure that could send even Medic's usual malicious side cowering. He hated this man – if he even deserved such a name. This man, no German, was something less than human. They were all the same. They were all animalistic, hungry, unfeeling, warped, disgusting excuses for human beings. Soldier had convinced himself that the only emotions they were capable of feeling were anger and greed. Things like love and compassion were elements that they didn't possess.

_Just like mom. _The thought was fleeting and tired as Soldier's subconscious, which brought back the fresh memories of absolute terror, despair, pain, and Medic's comforting touch. Just like mom.

_Never. _He snapped back to the tired voice before suppressing it and its bothersome memories. He could feel it suffocating in his mental grip, but before it twisted and died, it had one last fleeting request.

_He cared for you when no one else did. Consider your feelings._

Feelings? To hell with feelings. He had none; not one shred of remorse for this German bastard. It was on its knees before him – face twisted in pain or shock, he didn't know – and right hand clutching at the wound; no, probing it. He was a medic after all.

He'd been shot. Shot, pushed, kidnapped. Medic didn't know what god he had angered to deserve this, but if he could do anything to rectify it he would. What he wouldn't give to be home with her. He'd do anything to just listen to her sing when she cooked, to feel her small body pressed against his when he wrapped his arms around her, the way she'd giggle when he nipped at her neck, the way they quickly turned into moans of his name, and when they made love; oh _Gott_. He didn't care. Even if he could just lie in bed with her next to him and listen to each other breathe, he'd be there in a heartbeat. Too bad it wasn't his bed she was in right now.

And now this. He hadn't begged and waited on his hands and knees for months on end for a letter, and when it did come, he'd had to have it wrenched away because of some dummkopf with a shotgun.

Pain shot through his body as his fingers made contact with the wound, and intensified when said dummkopf violently forced Medic forward. He stumbled then felt Soldier's shot gun press against his spine.

"Move out!" Soldier's voice held command in it again.

Soldier knew that he'd played it below the belt: neither of them knew what would happen beyond this fence if they died. Respawn was nothing more than an empty word beyond the confines of their world, but he couldn't stop his mouth from pressing into a thin line of animosity when Medic gave him a passing glare of pure hate that was so brief he wondered if had happened at all.

_Believe me, the feeling's mutual._

Despite that and everything he thought about Medic, he had considered his feelings. The helpless, wounded Medic before him was completely at his mercy, but just as he was about to align the gun with Medic's head something had stayed his hand. In all eleven or twelve days he'd spent at Medic's mercy, the German had never once attempted to kill him. It was a life for a life – nothing more and nothing less.

-And goodness was Medic fast. Soldier watched him walk forward in a way that clearly said: fuck you. His shoulders were thrown back and seemed proud in the heightening sunlight and waves of hot air.

Solder dug the shotgun barrel into Medic's back, "Let's go, Kraut!" and immediately wished he hadn't.

Damn was he fast.

He was so fast, in fact, that by the time they'd neared Soldier's intended destination, they were both panting, but Medic was holding up fairly well. The same couldn't be said for the RED Soldier – who wasn't built for speed so much as brute strength.

"The train station?" Medic scoffed, "You should have just shot me," there was venom in that voice, "It would have been more convenient to get back."

"Not everything's about you," Soldier's voice bit back at him.

Medic was prodded forward again, and in this manner, the rather unlikely pair trotted toward the old run-down buildings of wood, and the two both slumped down onto the same wooden bench. Even this far from Gravel Pit, the scent of gun powder had never quite left the air and its metallic quality was sharp in their noses as they both put aside their differences for the moment and waited for a reason that only Soldier knew, and knowing Soldier, it couldn't have been a good one.

Luckily for the two ragged mercenaries, there was little to none in the terms of population in the Gravel Pit area. The twelve people at the run-down station consisted of a very bored looking ticket-counter clerk and tourists who'd paid an exceedingly large sum of money to take a scenic bus tour of the Gravel Pits of America, as proclaimed by their cheap looking t-shirts and flags.

Medic raised an eyebrow in amusement. It was probably an idea their weapon supplier, Saxton Hale, had formulated to help maintain the mercenaries' multi-million dollar salaries; not that it seemed to be working. The tourists were also giving Medic some looks back, but they weren't ones of amusement.

A mother and father quickly hurried their black-haired children by the duo with urgency and fright in their step. The oldest, a boy, looked curiously at them but went on his way indifferently. The other, that seemed to be his younger teenage sister, glanced over Medic in his now torn vest, dress-shirt, tie, and boots and quickly darted over to appraise Soldier. She blushed deeply and hurriedly rushed after her brother with a smile on the corners of her mouth. The RED Soldier? Really? There was just something undeniable about a man in uniform Medic mussed to himself, before his own days as a Wehrmacht surfaced. Yes, that was definitely it.

_Women_, he thought to himself disdainfully.

"Liberals," muttered Soldier huffily, who'd apparently noticed both the girl and her short, rebellious haircut.

Soldier shook off the experience quickly – possessing the one track mind that he did. His eyes glanced up from under his helmet at a familiar sound.

"Train's here."


	7. RED plus BLU equals No Pay

The Administrator was going to be pissed.

"Pyro!"

Fuckin' pissed, man.

"St-stop!"

Back before Soldier had decided to pull his little stunt, there was the BLU Pyro and Scout. Then, suddenly, the entire RED team minus one brash American.

"Kay, this does not look here. Um," Scout said while skidding to halt, and in face of the raw war cries of the REDs – who were attacking for once – he issued one of his own, "We. Are. Screwed! Help! Yo, I'm dyin' here! We're bein' attacked!"

Scout ran back towards the barracks screaming at the top of his lungs. Pyro too had changed direction and was running straight into the on-coming REDs.

Sleepy, disheveled, and now alarmed BLUs were emerging from their respective barracks and camper vans and hurriedly dressing and arming themselves. The BLU Scout burst into his and began sorting through the un-opened mail dumped onto his bed until he found the packages he was looking for. He'd spent exactly $23.96 of his money to buy an entirely new set of weapons from Mann Co. and intended to put them to good use. He tore the Soda Popper, Winger, and Atomizer out of their packages and stuffed all but the Soda Popper into a bag which he slung across his back. He then grabbed his baseball cap and earpiece and was about to jam them onto his head when he noticed the last and most expensive item of his purchase: a blue, winged, latex mask. He grinned.

When the masked and be-hatted Scout joined the fray, there were only five mercenaries doing their best to hold the line.

"Yo, Sniper!"

His concentration broken, "Sniper grunted at the Scout, "Get goin'"

"Whattaya think I was doin'?" Scout yelled back while shooting a couple of bullets into the enemy Spy – who was lurking dangerously close to Sniper's hidden corner - "Where's Soldier an' Spy?"

"I dunno. Soldier's probably at that apartment of his, and who knows where Spy is." Scout was about to run off and help the BLU Pyro when Sniper continued, "I got a better question for yah: Where's the Doc?" Everything about this sudden attack left a bad taste in his mouth, and he had good guess at who was behind it.

Scout glanced briefly at the entrance of B, "Gone."

It was all that he said before he dashed forward to claim a place by Pyro; leaving a confused, troubled, and more worried Sniper in his wake.

Scout was wrong: Medic wasn't gone; not yet. He was calculating how far he could get before Soldier noticed he was gone. Answer: Not far enough out of the rocket-launcher's range, and Soldier probably didn't have any qualms about using it here. Who was he kidding? Soldier _didn't_ have any qualms about using it at all. Medic glanced over at the offending man. He'd gotten up about seven minutes ago to try and secure a spot for them on the train. Three minutes before it pulled out of station. Three minutes until Soldier would give up and take him back.

_Or just shoot you._

_Halt die Klappe. _

"Sir—it's a mail train. It doesn't let passengers board—

"This is direct disrespect of a soldier who fights for your very freedom and liberty!"

Two minutes.

"Sir I'm sorry, but—"

Medic was only vaguely aware of Soldier cutting the flustered clerk off again. Just two more minutes and he'd be free.

_Or shot._

_Halt die Klappe_, he told his thoughts again with more insistence this time.

Medic let his eyes wander back over to the clump of tourists looking nervously at Soldier and the various weapons strapped to his body.

"I'd like to request a conference with your superiors!" Soldier's voice had raised a few decibels.

One minute.

"Hey! Nazi!" Soldier yelled as he jogged back to Medic.

Medic paled, "You can't just yell that in a public place," he hissed.

"Well you are; aren't you?" Soldier's eyes hardened; not that Medic could see them anyway.

Medic glanced back over the crowd of tourists, which was practically scrambling away from them at this point.

"The Nazi party was disbanded at the end of the war," Medic replied stiffly, "there are no more Nazis."

Soldier clenched his jaw in consideration of this answer. He gave up.

"C'mon," he purposely grabbed the Medic's wounded shoulder and ignored his yelp of pain while pulling him forward, "We're gonna climb aboard this vehicle before he comes back with his uppers."

"Or security," Medic groaned.

Soldier prodded him ahead. The message was clear: Keep walking or I shoot.

"Hey!" The two glanced back. The clerk had made it back, and neither he nor the man with him looked happy.

Solder wrenched the doors to a car open and was about to jump in when Medic stopped him.

"Nein, RED Soldier! Wait!"

Soldier looked back at the hesitant Medic irritatedly, "What?"

"Bitte, let's just go back before they know that we're missing. The Administrator," his voice trailed off, "We could lose our jobs."

"Negative. It's imperative that we board this train. There is information inside that I have been appointed to obtain," his chest puffed out proudly, and then he sneered at the Medic, "and besides, that's your problem; isn't it, Kraut?" and then disappeared inside the train.

Medic glanced back. The clerk and the other man were making their way towards them.

"RED Soldier. RED Soldier!"

"Hey! You two can't board this train!"

Medic tried again, "RED Soldier," he hissed up at the opening. He knew the RED could hear him perfectly fine.

The train sprung to life with a shudder.

Medic's eyes darted between the doors of the train and their pursuers before quickly pulling himself in after the soldier.

"Wait! Stop this train, now!" but it was too late. The train was already picking up speed and would quickly leave both the station and Gravel Pit behind.

'I have important information to obtain,' Was ein Idiot," he growled before completely stumbling into the train car.

"S'about time," Soldier crossed to the doors, and they closed with a screech.

"So what, exactly, was so important about this train?"

"I was appointed with—"

"You know perfectly well, that you appointed yourself."

"I'll have you know, I was awarded several medals for my services during the war!" Soldier was yelling again.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"So what? Did I appoint them to myself too? Huh?"

"I—What? I never said that!"

"You were implying it!"

"I was not!"

"Was too!"

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

"Was no—Ach, what am I even doing?" Medic eyed Soldier – who was rifling through the bag of mail for what ever "information" he was sent for." Wait. "RED Soldier."

"What?'

"How old are you?"

Soldier was still fishing through the bags and wasn't really paying attention to Medic, "Thirty-seven."

Medic did some quick math, "You never fought in the war."

This got Soldier's attention, "I did too!"

"Nein, you didn't. You turned eighteen in 1949; four years after the war ended," Soldier didn't say anything, "Wow, Herr RED Soldat, I never would have taken you for a liar—"

"Shut up! Just shut up!"

Medic chuckled with an almost evil edge to his voice, "Well, listen to someone who did serve, _junge_, that war is nothing that you should ever wish you were a part of."

"Ha! So you admit it! You are a Nazi!"

Medic's glasses glinted in the low light of the car as he head tilted slightly to the side. Then very softly he spoke, "Ja," he paused, "I was."

Something threatened to break inside Soldier, but he held it back. Now wasn't the time or the place, but, mark this, the Nazi would pay for his crimes against America soon enough.

He returned to his "information", which was really an almost empty bag of mail. If the mercenaries didn't stop by to pick up their letters and packages in person, it was sent back and lost in the system. Contracts suck. He pulled out his own mail and then glanced over at the Medic – who had leaned back against a stack of packages. Soldier chewed on his tongue for bit while he considered handing over the bag to the ex-Nazi. According to the Geneva Convention of 1949: Prisoners of War had the right to receive post that may or may not have been censored by their captivators. Taking this in stride, Soldier scanned through the rest of the items that had to have belonged to Medic. There was one labeled simply as: Emilie. It sounded female. Neither last name nor addressee was on it. Either the Medic or the woman writing him didn't want anybody finding out about their correspondence. And the last was a large package from Man Co. "Quick-Fix" was stamped onto the outside of the box. It sounded like medical junk. It couldn't hurt, he guessed. What was the Nazi going to do? Heal him to death? Soldier snickered at the thought.

"What's so funny?" Medic sounded annoyed.

Soldier decided to take advantage of that, "Didn't know you had a girlfriend, _Sweetheart_."

Medic felt his eyes widen behind his glasses.

_Emilie_. His thoughts crooned her name wistfully, and then his face reddened. How much of that had the Soldier read?

"Give that to me. Now," he snapped.

Soldier threw the bag and package at him.

It all made sense now. Of course Soldier would hop aboard this train. He wanted his mail. From what Medic could see "mail" consisted of two large Man Co. packages. He shuddered. It wasn't like the brute needed any more weapons than he had now. Medic set the Mann Co. one aside and turned over his requested letter from Emilie in his hands. He paused. It was heavier than any normal letter. His heart caught in his throat. There was something hard and circular beneath the paper. He pushed it aside with the package.

"I'm getting off at the next stop."

"Good riddance," said Soldier.

"Oh? Und how are you getting back?

"I—uh. Hadn't thought of that yet."

"Typical."

"Don't confuse me with your Nazi language!"

"It's an English word," Medic spat out in disgust.

"Well, I speak American—"

"_Mein Gott_."

"See?" Soldier pointed an accusatory finger at him.

Medic sighed. There was no point in arguing.

Soldier watched him curiously for a while, "Aren't you going to open your girlfriend's letter?"

"She's not my girlfriend, and _nein_, I'm not going to open it," Medic's voice caught and he added so softly that Soldier almost missed it, "and I already know what it's going to say."

And both the RED and BLU mercenaries knew what the Administrator would say before they heard it, but that knowledge didn't take the sting out of her words.

"Each and every one of you will have your pay docked for every day this ceasefire lasts." There was a collective cry of outrage from every single mercenary staring at the Administrator's picture on the screen. Ms. Pauling shifted nervously in the background and prayed that the mercenaries wouldn't say something smart or do anything similarly stupid because she would be sent to deal with them. She already was harassed enough by the Scouts of both teams. She shivered involuntarily as the BLU one paused to wink at her.

The BLU Spy stepped forward, "What I don't understand, Madame, is the reason for the ceasefire. Why can we not carry on with out our—absentees?"

"Because, Monsieur Spy, it is clearly specified by both of your employers and company contracts that every team be balanced, both in number and manpower, unless an auto-balance is preformed." This time the mercenaries shivered. Auto-balance had only happened once, but it was an organizational nightmare fraught with confusion and friendly fire. The only supposed "good thing" that had happened was the BLU Soldier and RED Demoman bonding over their mutual love of guns, alcohol, and women, and even that had resulted in an equally frustrating war. The two in question exchanged brief grins.

The Administrator glared at them, "You will either find the RED Soldier and BLU Medic within a month's time or be auto-balanced after the duration of every. Single. Battle. Do I make myself clear, gentlemen?"

"A-as crystal, Ma'am," the BLU Engineer said quickly.

"Good."

The screen turned black, and the RED base was silent for once.

"God help us all," whispered one of the Snipers.

"Well?" the RED Spy looked around at the cluster of both teams, "Would someone _care_ to help me solve this?"

No one slept that night.


	8. If You Give a Sniper a Medic

AN: This chapter... Well, I apologize for the quality. Oh! And stay tuned for another one of these at the end. You'll like it. I promise.

_**"Ahhhh, but dammit- it doesn't matter **__**what**__** he said in that weird robot voice I've never heard him talk in before. Once you've taken a man out for whiskey and ribs... then fought him... then fought the police with him... Well, you have forged a bond thicker than any soup you can buy. That's not girl talk, either. That is just facts."** __- BLU Soldier_

There is always one person in every group that is impossible to like. Take Scout, for example:

"You look like an imbecile."

Nobody gathered inside the RED base that night was presently happy with the BLU Scout.

"Go fuck a mom."

Nobody.

The RED Spy smirked, "You 'ave no idea."

Not even the Pyros.

"What's that s'posed t'mean, chucklehead?"

The Pyros liked everybody.

"Hey! What's so fuckin' funny over there?"

The Scout had yet to find that out, though.

The BLU Soldier and Heavy had burst into uncontrollable laughter.

"Hey, Commie."

"Da, Soldier?"

"You remember those pictures Frechie showed us that one time when the RED Spy broke into our base?" the BLU Soldier grinned suggestively at the BLU Russian.

They all laughed some more.

"Go ahead an' laugh like a bunch'a fuckin' fags. Who frickin' cares about some motherfuckin' pictures anyway."

The BLU Spy had tried to be good, but Scout just had to insert that particularly delicious word; didn't he?

"Oh yes, they were quite the _motherfucking_ pictures, were they not?"

With that, all four mercenaries in on the joke were roaring with laughter, while the rest of the RED and BLU teams awkwardly exchanged confused glances.

"Gentlemen, please," snickered the RED Spy, "We shouldn't poke fun at the boy," the room started to calm, "After all, your base isn't the only thing I've been inside within the past few months, n'est pas?"

The four of them exploded into laughter again.

"'Ey!" the BLU Sniper had lost his patience. "Quit fucking around!"

It really didn't help the situation.

"Mais, Monsieur Sniper, the only one 'ere _fucking around_ is my RED colleague."

The four threatened to lapse back into their previous merriment, when Sniper pulled out his Kukri, "I mean it," his voice was low and deadly, "You think this is funny? We're on the verge of either losing our jobs or bein' auto-balanced, and you're standin' around skinnin' your teeth like a bunch of bloody kookaburras."

Everyone looked at the kukri, and the familiar cross-faction tension returned.

Until the BLU Scout opened his mouth, "Yeah, what he said."

"Scout!" Sniper sheathed the kukri and turned to scowl at the youngest BLU.

"What'd I do?"

"The RED Spy's roight: you look like a bloody idiot. Take off the mask."

"I do whatever I frickin' want, kay?"

"Whatever," Sniper looked up to address the entire room, "Roight, listen up. No more side conversations or anything else that isn't about Medic or the RED Soldier. It won't be funny," he shot glares toward each of the offending mercenaries, "no more when we're all auto-balanced an' broke."

The BLU Spy held up a finger to indicate that he held the floor, "May I make a suggestion?"

"If it isn't stupid—"

"I assure you, Monsieur Sniper, it is not."

"Go on, then."

"We wait." There was a mass uproar. "Attendez!" Everyone settled into a discontented silence. "They are bound to make une erreur at some point during this wild escapade, oui? Well, per'aps not the docteur—"

The BLU Soldier hadn't comprehended most of Spy's explanation due to crude Frenchie words that obviously pointed out the fact that Spy was a coward. Obviously. But he did understand that America had been insulted.

"You got something against America crouton? Because I just heard you say that some Nazi—"

"Oh? And who told you that Medic was a Nazi?"

"The instincts that sweet Lady Liberty provided me with do! And they say that he's a Nazi! Damn it!"

"You 'ave just stated the same thing with two different sentences."

"You are—"

Whatever the BLU Spy was, no one got to hear it.

"I'm done. You want to fuck yourselves over? Fine by me. Don' come crying t'me 'bout it when you realize y'could've fixed things when you had the chance."

With this statement, Sniper shouldered his rifle and left the RED base; all whist repeatedly muttering, "Wankers," murderously under his breath.

As soon as he left, the remaining "wankers" – who hadn't stormed off in a fit of glorious Australian rage - figured out a quite brilliant plan almost immediately, but Sniper wouldn't find out about the massive amounts of dramatic irony he'd just fallen victim to until the next day. Because right now, all that mattered was Medic.

"Where are you mate?"

Sniper sat on the edge of the small wooden platform - that RED had taken to calling a porch – and looked up into the now sinking sun as though it would hold the answer he so desperately needed.

"I'm sorry I called you a 'bloody quack.' Y'know I didn' mean it, roight? You're just—So bloody difficult sometimes, mate. Y'just don't go 'round locking people up in rooms an' dissecting their brains or what not. That's some real shonky business, that is," at that moment Sniper realized that he didn't even know what he was doing. He was talking to the bloody sun, for God's sake. "An' what am I even doing? I'm talking to the bloody sun, for God's sake."

With that snort of disgust and confusion because: he was talking to the bloody sun for God's sake; he didn't even know what he was doing, he pushed himself down from the porch and stretched his tall, lanky frame.

He had had some business to attend to.

_It'd been a long day at Thunder Mountain, and a hard loss to boot. _

Perhaps it would have been better phrased to say: business he was sticking his unwanted nose into.

_As for Sniper? All he'd wanted was to wallow in it alone. _

But damn it all, he owed Medic at least this much.

_He'd never bargained for what had happened next._

And maybe, this was just something that, out of some misplaced sense of guilt or understandable feeling of worry, he needed to do for himself.

"_Doc?"_

_Their usually collected team doctor was—crying? _

"_W-was?" his voice cracked horribly in panic. _

_Papers of the BLU Medic's half-written letter fluttered to the floor of the barracks, and he scrambled to snatch them up before his Australian bunkmate could see his tears. In a rare moment of pity that went against his better judgment, Sniper sank to his knees and helped the doctor gather them. The moment, as any between them, was awkward. The silence seemed to balloon out and encompass the room until it suffocated the two men._

_Finally, Sniper spoke, "I didn't know ya had yourself a sheila, doc." _

_Medic's eyes met Sniper's involuntarily, "Y-you," he coughed to clear his voice, "You are familiar vith German?" his accent was heavy on his tongue, and he seemed oddly dazed, as if he'd been violently awakened from sleep. It wasn't normal._

_Sniper's voice was low, "Nah, I just figured that, well, you know - it'd be a sheila or somethin' loike that." He stood up and offered Medic the pages held carefully in his grip._

_Medic gave a small cough of acknowledgment and stumbled to his feet before taking the pages back from Sniper. _

_It was awkward again: the epitome of Sniper's life. See, he'd never been a people kind of person, and he never knew quite what to do. The right thing would have been to comfort the doctor, but he didn't know how. Certainly he wouldn't be able to take the taller man into his arms and wipe away his tears like his mother used to do for him, so Sniper stuffed his hands in his pockets and regretted not leaving when he'd had the chance instead._

"_She's mein wife."_

_Lord, he hadn't signed up for this, "Oh."_

"_Und I—I don't know vhat to do."_

"_It'll come to you eventually, doc."_

_Medic nodded and quickly wiped away the tears. Sniper took this as an opening to leave but…_

"_Hey doc, when's the last time you had a drink?"_

_Damn his conscience._

Sniper couldn't say that he'd regretted one moment of that day in hindsight, but he'd never once thought that it would ever be useful now.

"42 Wallaby Way, Badlands," he repeated to himself and couldn't help rolling his eyes at the word, "Wallaby" – no doubt the poor settlement containing this unfortunate road was influenced by none other than: Saxton Hale.

Sniper pushed his exasperation aside and allowed himself to appreciate Spy's line of work for just a moment. Who knew that observing an address from a letter written in German nearly ten months ago would be so useful?

Sniper pulled himself into the driver's seat of his nearby camper and watched the last rays of light start to disappear through the dusty windshield.

"For God's sake, what are you even doing, Mundy?" he questioned.

To start with: it was a bit reckless and stupid; a man's best mate didn't just hop into his camper for two hours and then say exactly what to his wife?

"Oi! Sorry to tell ya, but your husband's been kidnapped and possibly killed by some bloody wack-job with a shotgun. Oh, me? I'm just the crazed gunman he works with. Yeah, we're bloody fuckin' chummy with each other and all. Mind if I come in?"

At the very least, he wasn't talking to the sun.

AN: So about that dramatic irony: what if I let you choose what that oh, so very brilliant plan was? Hm? And no, this isn't because I'm too lazy to think of one; this is simply me kicking off the Reader's Choice portion of this story.

See, I have this entire narrative already planned out in my head, and part of that narrative is to let the readers voice an opinion over the minor and a few of the major (note the word few) details (the plan is an example of a major detail. Trust me, you'll understand why I do this later). Alright, admittedly this wasn't part of the original plan for _this _particular story, but it was the plan for my very first fan fic. that isn't on here. It's called: _The Medic Files_.

It takes place near the ending of the events of this story and elaborates upon them, but it's serious unlike this one. _The Medic Files_ has already been written, but I never completely finished it nor posted it, due to the sheer amounts of heartbreak and un-TF2-ness attitude contained.

However, I've decided that I still like the idea of a Reader's Choice, especially for those of you who have taken your time to read and review for me; thus making me a MUCH better and happier writer. Think of this as a great big Something Special for Someone Special - without the obligation of marrying me, or whatever they're for (I honestly have no idea)

So: What was this brilliant plan? Leave it in the reviews, and for Soldier's and Medic's and Sniper's sake, be _**creative**._


	9. Hey I Just Met You, and This is Crazy

AN: Keep on with the reviews for the plan. This is the last chapter before I close it.

The trip to 42 Wallaby Way, Badlands was longer than Sniper had expected it to be; he was taking at least thirty minutes longer than he should have, and he still wasn't quite sure that this was a good idea at all. Even so, he wasn't about to turn around now and make the two hour trip back.

With this in mind, Sniper glanced at the road map taped to his dash with just a swift stir of his light blue eyes and then flicked on his headlights with stiff and clumsy fingers. He'd never minded the frigidity of the desert nights much, but this was just savage; even his and Medic's barrack never got this cold when they were assigned to the desert regions.

Sniper's eyes began to droop as his body fought for him to conserve the remaining energy the cold hadn't sapped from his strength. He shuddered against it - running off the road this far from base and respawn was not an option. Instead he focused on the sheer immensity and beauty of the flattened moonlit land that stretched before him – a sight he could always appreciate. His eyelids threatened to slip again until a sound that was suspiciously similar to uncloaking caught his ears. But it couldn't have been. For good measure, he threw a hurried glance over his shoulder. Nothing. Just his reflexes getting in the way again.

Sniper sighed and grudgingly took one hand off the wheel, so it could fumble for the now cold Styrofoam cup of coffee he'd been wise enough to buy before completely venturing away from all civilization.

But as he brought the cup level to his mouth, he realized something: he was close. The unnatural lights glimmering in the distance told him that much. It took him fifteen more minutes to reach the sign that proclaimed the street as Wallaby Way and five more to reach the lights.

"Crikey," coarse and uneven from hours of un-use, Sniper's voice still managed to convey the appropriate amount of shock regarding the situation.

He knew that his salary barely trifled that of Medic's but—

"Crikey," he said again.

The seemingly custom built mansion sprawled before the camper was frighteningly huge; even the front yard was dizzying to look at. It was too intimidating to even think about pulling his van into a drive-way where it clearly didn't belong.

Sniper pulled his vest closer to his body for warmth as he stepped out of the van and stared at the sight before him. This couldn't be the right place. This was Medic, after all, his best mate. There was nothing that neither would nor could ever possess Medic to buy a monstrosity such as this - it wasn't exactly hard to tell that he wasn't in the job for the money so much as for the personal experience. Sniper suppressed another violent shudder that had nothing to do with the cold.

There was no way. Was there? Just to be sure he checked the address and almost collapsed with relief – the address was 41 Wallaby Way, not 42. Then his eyes narrowed. Then who the bloody hell lived there? He wasn't aware of any other people besides the mercenaries who could afford such a place, nor did he know of any who did. Perhaps it was a RED?

Sniper shook his head to clear the troublesome thoughts, "Since when did I turn into a bloody Spy?" With that said, the walk to 42 Wallaby Way commenced, but first he removed his hat and tossed it back into the van – the tinted sunglasses had been discarded around an hour and a half ago – he was going to see a lady, after all.

It didn't take long for him to reach the door of the – thankfully, normal-sized – house, but it took longer to will himself to knock heavily at the door. It was only then when he realized how late it was. Men didn't just up and call on married women, especially not at this time of night.

"Idiot," he grumbled to himself.

"You, do not leave!" called out a clear, hurried-sounding, feminine voice from inside; almost as though it was responding to his hesitance.

Sniper desperately tried to slick his messy hair back and down against his scalp.

"Mundy, you've gotten yourself into a real piece'a pi—" the door opened, "Er—'Ello, Mrs."

She was German that was for sure. She put Medic, himself, to shame.

Tall – Sniper estimated about 176 to 178 centimeters – blonde, and blue-eyed she commanded authority, and this seemed to intensify when her eyes fell upon Sniper instead of whomever she'd clearly been expecting, but God was she ravishing, and elegant, and proud, and breath-taking all at once.

"Vhy are you here? Who are you?" Her demeanor still hadn't softened, but her voice sounded unsure and deathly frightened behind the harsh accent – one, Sniper noted, that managed to be much thicker than her husband's.

Sniper managed to hold his ground but checked his tone and avoided direct eye-contact, while letting his palms lay upward and open.

"It'sa 'bout your husband, miss. The BLU Medic?" He swore steel appeared in her sky-blue eyes when he mentioned her husband. "I'm a co-worker of 'is," he thought it best to leave out the words "professional assassin".

"Vhat has happened to him?" her voice carried more of a bite this time.

This struck Sniper as odd. There was no passion, no worry, no shock. There was simply nothing at all - it seemed so distant, so cold.

"He's gone missing."

"Vhy is it zat you are saying 'missing'?" her brow furrowed in confusion.

It then occurred to Sniper that she wasn't as familiar with the English language as her husband was. It seemed that Medic had never bothered to teach her, or she had never bothered to learn, but knowing Medic and the amount of time he spent worrying over his wife, Sniper doubted that he'd failed to at least make one honest attempt at teaching her what he'd known. Sniper also had his doubts about how much he was starting to take to this woman.

"It's a long story, Mrs. Mind if I come in? It'll be easier to explain."

She took a shaky breath while plain hesitation and nervousness began to show more clearly on her pretty face.

"I mean, ya no harm, Mrs. I just think ya deserve t'know 'bout your husband, is all."

She nodded quickly and opened the door wider, so he could practically feel the warmth beckoning from within, "You, come in zee house."

She walked hastily ahead, and then Sniper noticed the smell of rosewater coupled with the becoming and rather low-cut black dress.

Guilt and regret surged through his very being. She'd clearly dressed herself up for a lover and painstakingly pinned her silky blonde hair back so that it would be perfect. To think that he'd doubted her love for the BLU Medic, when she so obviously did care immensely for him, was almost shameful.

She led him to the dining area and gestured for him to sit. He immediately noticed that the table was set for two, and she quickly cleared one of the places for him.

"I vill return soon, Herr—"

"Mundy, Mrs. The name's Mundy."

"Herr Mundy," she inclined her head politely and bustled off through an adjourning door that presumably led into the kitchen.

"Well haven't you got yourself a roight, decent woman, mate," Sniper muttered to himself. Admittedly, he was surprised. Medic was the last man he would have expected to be married – and the last man he thought _should _have been married – especially to an ace of a woman, such as this – a woman who was at least a few years younger than him, mind you.

A familiar and pleasant smell wafted to Mundy's nose while mixing with the spicy smell of some sort of meat he identified as cow. It took all of his willpower to stop himself from salivating all over the polished table.

She came back to the table in a decent amount of time and set a cup of coffee before the worn Sniper before taking her place across from him.

"None for you?"

She looked shocked, "Nein."

How peculiar.

"It is not appropriate," she continued

Sniper nodded and took a sip. She'd clearly never heard of the feminist movement, then, but that wasn't what he'd came for.

"Roight, so your husband, the BLU Medic, he's been kidnapped," he waited for a response.

"Vhat are you wanting to say dem zee vord, "kidnapped".

It took the Sniper a bit, "I mean to say—um," she looked at him expectantly, and Sniper lowered his gaze to the table, "he's been taken away—er, abducted," she seemed to recognize this.

Sniper took a shaky breath as the full force of his own guilt finally hit him. Maybe if he hadn't been so mad at Medic, maybe if he'd gotten over it and slept in the barracks with him instead of the camper, maybe if he'd stuck around more, maybe this, maybe that, but most importantly of all: Why the hell had he completely trashed Medic to Spy? It may have had nothing to do with his disappearance at all, but it was possibly the worst crime he'd committed against his best friend. But why did Medic have to be so inherently cruel? Sometimes Sniper even believed the Nazi rumors, which he usually tended to settle on a firm undecided, but now, he wasn't even sure of that anymore.

Medic's wife shifted uncomfortably in the silence before taking the chance to speak, "Vhy?"

"Well, Mrs., we don't exactly—erm know," he finished flatly.

"But zey must like somezing," she sounded more frustrated than worried.

Some bitterness seeped into Sniper's tone, "Well, here's the thing, Mrs., it was someone from the other team. We don' know why he did it, but your husband's gone."

"But he can not die, yes?" she still sounded unconcerned.

So she knew about respawn, did she?

"Er—well," how was he to say this? "He can. There are limits on distance, and other wonky stuff, but my point, bein': he can probably die roight now."

Her brow furrowed further as she processed this and searched for the right words.

Finally she looked up, "How do you want me to help you?"

"I jus' thought you should know, is all."

"Oh," she paused, "Vell, danke." Her cheeks reddened slightly at the misspoken word, "I want to sa—"

Sniper held up a hand previously folded in his lap, "No need, I know whot you're tryin' t'say."

He stood up, "Thanks for all your hospitality, Mrs. I 'preciate it, truly," and nodded to her.

"Yes," she made an attempt to smile, "alvays," she said for lack of a better word.

Sniper tried to gracefully gulp down the rest of his coffee but failed rather miserably at this attempt, but before he could finish—

"Ah, wait. Before you leave, I want to ask you a question, Herr Mundy.

Sniper choked down his mouthful of luke-warm coffee almost painfully in the hurry to reply, "Yeah."

"Does zee RED team—äh," she searched for the right word for a painstaking moment that caused Sniper's hackles to rise. Why in the hell was she so interested in the RED team? Something wasn't right. She drew a blank on the word, "Kampf now vith your team?"

The Sniper's tone was harsh, "You're askin' me if we're foighting?"

Her face lit in recognition of the lost word, "Ja. Ach—I want to say: yes."

"No. We're all holed up in the RED base havin' ourselves a ceasefire. Anythin' else?"

"Nein, ach—no," her voice carried a visible difference, as though all of her current worries had melted away.

Her eyes softened with her voice. They connected with his wary pale blues for a moment, and only then, did the assassin find a loneliness that mirrored his own. And for once, the moment felt completely natural for the two solitary creatures that had been cut off from the world – one by choice and the other for the sake of a former love. And maybe – just maybe – had the circumstances been different, Sniper would have addressed the hunger in the air, had he been a different man, had she not been married, and if she had not been in love with another, she might have accepted it, but even so, Sniper almost lost himself and his worries in a blueness that could have been the sky. Almost.

"G'night, Mrs. Medic."

"Good-bye, Herr Mundy."

He opened the door without another word and stepped back out into the cold, but when he reached his van, he had goose bumps for an entirely different reason.

"Oh, mon cher bushman, will you never learn?" said a rather hushed voice as Sniper wrenched open the door.

"Get. Out," Sniper spat.

"And leave me, where, one might wonder," there was a faint shimmer of red and a slight ripple in the air.

The BLU Sniper climbed in and slammed the door, "Roight here. I here them wolves are fond of fancy bloody wusses."

"I see," the air shimmered in earnest and the RED Spy materialized in Sniper's camper, "Very nice 'ome you 'ave 'ere, bushman. I especially love the urine. It add a nice," the Spy's nose crinkled in obvious distaste, "touch."

Sniper snorted in response and started the engine.

Both the camper and its owner sputtered to life at the same time, "Y'ave been smoking in here. Damnit, you bloody—" another series of coughs cut Sniper off, and he reluctantly forced himself to crank the driver's window down.

"Oh please," the Spy rolled his eyes for dramatic effect, "it was only a few."

Sniper hit the gas, "Define 'a few.'

"Per'aps, say, four-"

"Christ."

"Or more."

"Bloody fucking hell, I live here ya know!"

"Oh, believe me," Spy grimaced, "I know."

"Whot's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you live in a _van_, and everybody 'appens to be painfully aware of it."

"I sleep in the barracks, mind you—"

"Ah, bon. Per'aps the BLU Medic can testify to that."

"Whot do ya want from me, bloody hell?"

"For one, we 'ave come to a conclusion."

"Y'mean, 'for once'. Let's hear it, then."

The Spy chuckled in earnest, "Very good, bushman, 'for once.'

Sniper's eyes flicked over to the map and caught briefly on the RED Spy's face, "Wait. What the hell happened to your nose?"

"My nose is in perfectly good condition, thank-you for asking," said Spy a little

too defensively.

"It's all crooked an' whatnot," Sniper's arch nemesis remained silent, "Someone broke it didn' they? So who am I sending roses to?" Sniper grinned at his windshield.

"Would you like to hear this or not, bushman?"

Sniper snorted and placed his hat back on his head with an unoccupied hand, "Well, get on with it."

Spy allowed his enemy a rare and honest smile, "You're going to love this."


	10. Something Involving Fire

Having an argument in a cramped box-car is never pleasant, unless the participants happen to be into that particular brand of fun. Although, that wouldn't exactly be appropriate to describe the RED Soldier and BLU Medic.

"What the fuck do you mean: 'sponge-bath?'

"I mean, that I only cleaned you, und shaved you, und fed you," the BLU Medic's voice dropped significantly in pitch for a brief moment, "through a tube—"

"What?" Soldier was about to blow a gasket. "You did _what_?"

"I took care of you!" Medic's voice rose to match Soldier's, which was to say: he was shouting, though perhaps not at the top of his lungs. "Vat? You zink zat I've never seen genitalia before? Vat am I? Eine Frau? I don't havf zee same zings, or somezing?" Soldier tried to open his mouth to retort, but the now thickly accented BLU was slowly starting to turn red, which never boded well. "Mein Gott! I'm ein doctor! Nein, combat medic! You zink zat I havfn't seen vorse?"

"You're a Nazi doctor!"

"You're poving mein point!"

"I—uh. No!" Soldier looked flustered, "I was talking about the tube, anyway!"

"Oh."

"But since you brought it up, I'll have you know that, in America, rape-!"

"Rape? Rape?" the two were both on their feet at this point in the argument concerning Soldier's supposed violation, "I did nozzing but take care of you. Vat? You zink I enjoyed zat?"

"You sound like my mother!"

"Gut. Because you obviously didn't learn from her zee first time around!"

"Don't you insult my mother you—"

"Oh, vat? Are you going to call me, "Nazi" one more time?"

"Ye—no. I—stop changing the subject! You had no right! It was invasive! It's _my_ dick!"

"Ja? Do you know how many times I've seen 'dicks'in mein life, excluding mein own?"

"Oh, believe me, I know."

"Und vat are you implying?" Medic rubbed at his temples in an attempt to control his temper.

"You know exactly '_vat_.'

Medic chose to ignore the poor imitation of his accent, "Nein, I don't. Enlighten me, please," Medic slumped back against a stack of packages and closed his eyes.

"You're a faggot, is what!" they immediately snapped back open.

"On vat grounds?" they both were yelling at each other again.

"So I guess that you just hang around that Communist for your health?"

"I—was? Zee Heavy? Vee aren't—"

"Okay. Stop!"

"Schtop vat?"

"With the Nazi-accent thing! You realize that if someone was reading this, and you started talking, no one would know what the hell you're saying? It sounds like: Uhnd ven I vas schleepingk viz zee Heavy like ien faggot—"

"I don't sound like zat!"

"What? I. Can't. Under. Stand. You," to an outside party, it was almost as if Soldier was speaking to a deaf person, which Medic's clear signs of aging wouldn't have helped along.

With a deep growl of frustration, which he'd clearly been suppressing for a while, Medic thrust his left hand into the Soldier's face.

"Oh," Soldier remarked to the obvious wedding band on Medic's finger.

Medic withdrew his hand and dramatically dropped to the floor of the car with his upper lip curled into a sneer and cold gray-blue eyes locked onto the obstinate American.

Ordinarily, Soldier would have apologized, but seeing as Medic was a Nazi, well, there would be neither leniency, nor the sweet honey of American forgiveness from Lady Liberty's bosom to soothe the blisters of Medic's false accusations.

As Soldier was mulling this over with "O'Say Can You See" playing quietly in the background his thoughts, Medic had decided to bounce the bullet, previously lodged in his shoulder, around in the palm of his hand. While doing this, his left shoulder rotated carefully around the new shotgun pellet-sized scar tissue. Medic snorted involuntary as the motion triggered a very slight twinge of pain and glanced at the healed wound from his peripheral vision.

Then the train jerked to a sudden and violent halt, and Medic's eyes snapped over to an equally shocked Soldier.

"How long have we been on the train?"

Soldier chewed on his lower lip in thought, "Five hours?"

"The next stop from Gravel Pit only takes two und ein half."

Soldier grabbed his rocket launcher, "Aw, hell."

Medic jumped to his feet, "Nein!"

"Nine what? Something is clearly happening, and I'll be damned if I let—"

"Just be quiet, vill you? We aren't killing civilians."

"Look, Nazi, it's me against them, and I will stand my ground against tyranny—

Medic clearly wasn't about to win using logic, so he used Soldier-logic, "They're American citizens. Don't you think that their just trying to—ah—defend their country und—eh—rights?"

Realization dawned on Soldier's face, or as Medic would have put it, "gullible".

. "For once in your pathet—"

"Hush," hissed Medic at the Soldier, for he'd picked up on the sound of voices through the thin metal of the car's door.

"Whatta'ya think you're doing stopping us like that?"

"I just gotta check your train, sir. There's been a terrorist threat issued about a Nazi—"

"I told you not to say that in public," Medic spat.

"Shut-up," Solder grumbled back with a half aimed kick at Medic's right leg.

"—and a heavily armed citizen—"

Try as he might to control his pitch, Soldier's voice still wavered on the borderline of noticeable, 'Citizen?' 'Citizen?' I'll show them 'citizen.'

Medic shot him a glare, and he clenched his jaw shut.

"—possibly a mad-man—"

Medic grinned.

"What's so funny, Kraut?"

"Who's laughing? I'm not."

"You were thinking it."

"You can't think laughter, dummkopf."

"What does that even mean?"

"It means: moron."

"When we get out of this train, I swear I'll—"

'We?' 'We' vat?"

"Shhhhhh!" As understandable as it is to hush someone to avoid being caught by the U.S. government, the problem with this particular hushing, was that it wasn't the quiet kind. It was the kind where most everyone in the surrounding area can hear you while spit flies out of your mouth. Fortunately for Soldier, only Medic heard him. Unfortunately for Medic, he was now covered in a good amount of spit.

"Mein Gott,"

"What does that mean? You say it every other sentence."

"It means zat I'm zis close," Medic's index finger hovered two centimeters from his thumb, "from gutting you alive vith your own helmet."

Soldier snorted, "That's not even possible."

"Vould you like me to make it possible?"

"Why don't you—wait. They're saying something." Both mercenaries practically flew to the door and figuratively glued their ears against it.

"—We've been getting reports of them using the Northern Express on the Southern Pacific railroads. I believe on a mail train bound from the gravel pit regions."

The two "terrorists" locked panic-stricken eyes.

"Oh—Oh Lord!"

"What is it? Have you seen them?"

"This is the mail-train from the gravel pit area."

"Move. _Move_," Soldier pulled Medic away from the door by the back of his collar.

"Don't pull me."

"Why are we still whispering?"

"You vant to die?"

Soldier dropped the subject, "The only way out is through them."

"Maybe not."

Soldier pushed his helmet out of his eyes and raised an incredulous eyebrow at the doctor, "How?'

A metal door that seemed to be eight cars down from them screeched open.

"Vell—ah—it's completely irrational, und not to mention dangerous," Medic's brow furrowed, "Und zen there's that matter of our jobs, but then again, we are terrorists."

"Speak, man. I'll take anything at this point."

"We could just hijack the train," he shrugged as though this was the most natural idea in the world.

"Fritz?"

"Ja?"

"If we get out of this alive, remind me to thank you."

"Ja, vell, I never said you vouldn't have to make some sacrifices."

Soldier's eyes narrowed suspiciously, "Like what?"

"Have you ever been through surgery without anesthetic?"

"Once," Soldier ground his teeth together in a way that had nothing to do with the RED Medic, "Where are you going with this?"

"Nowhere," Medic answered a bit too quickly for Soldier's tastes.

Another car door screeched open.

"Have you ever undergone surgery without proper medical equipment?"

_Never trust a Nazi_, Soldier thought to himself as he watched the BLU hold back a grin, _Never. _

_Never lock yourself in a van for over two-hours with a Spy_, Sniper thought irritatedly as he waited on the RED Spy to cough up whatever he had to say, _Never. _

"Something involving fire."

Sniper blinked in surprise, "Whot?"

"I said: '_fire_,' bushman," the Spy sneered.

"Loike Pyro kinda fire?"

"Non, we're simply going to take a match to your piss, and throw it at various unsuspecting citizens. Of course zee Pyros, you half-wit."

"Y'know the whole jarate idea, just moight—"

"Mon Dieu, it actually thinks that it is a good idea."

"Oi! Who you callin' 'it?'

The Spy sighed, "Never mind that, just concentrate on driving," the RED glanced out of the dusty passenger window and stared at the flat desert now kissed by the first weak rays of light. He could perhaps understand the bushman's fascination with the natural world, but he couldn't understand the bushman himself. Spy allowed his tone to soften slightly, "Why did you not do it?"

Sniper, whose eyes had been growing heavy again, jerked back to reality, "Whots that?"

"Why did you not do it?" Spy repeated. Sniper shook his head at him in confusion. "Why didn't you sleep with 'er?"

"Whot? Yer kiddin' roight?"

Spy snorted in disgust, "Does it remotely sound like I am?"

"I have standards, you snake. I don' just go an' sleep around with married sheilas."

"You're assuming that she's faithful."

"I ain't assumin' nothing. Faithful or not I don't—hang on there, whot do'ya mean by 'faithful?'

"You think she was all dressed up for 'er 'usband?" Spy snorted in laughter, "You 'onestly think she loves 'im?"

"An' who says she doesn't?" Sniper was now the one to sound overly defensive.

"Tell me, mon cher bushman, did she seem at all worried about 'im? Was she dying of panic or fainting of shock?"

Sniper's heart sank, _Now come to think of it— _

"No. No! She wouldn't. You don' know. You don' know how much he loves her."

Spy raised an eyebrow, "The BLU Medic? 'E is what I like to call a high-functioning sociopath—Do not interrupt," for the now distraught Sniper had opened his mouth to retort, "This is for your own good. I do not know 'im like you do, but if what you're trying to say is true, and 'e really does appear to "love" 'er, I doubt that 'e realizes that 'e really doesn't care about 'er."

"I don't understand whot you're saying"

Spy sighed again, "Of course you do not; I do not know why I expected you to. To put it bluntly for you: The BLU Medic is either incapable of or finds it difficult to feel love for others," Sniper's jaw clenched at the road in front of him, "Well, per'aps not you. I think that 'e genuinely likes you – seeing as you haven't been gutted like a Cornish game hen, yet."

"He loves her. I know he does."

"Says the man who wouldn't be aware of a romantic advance, even if it uncloaked right be'ind 'im."

"You implyin' somethin'?"

"Sacrebleu, it actually understands. Mais oui, I am implying something."

"Again with the 'it'—"

"Is that all you can think of?"

"Holy Dooley," realization dawned on the Sniper's face, "It's you isn' it?"

By the look of disgust on the RED Spy's face, this realization was entirely wrong.

"Oh, it isn't."

"Non."

"Oh."

There was brief silence as Sniper continued to drive, and the dawn began to break outside but not in Sniper's head.

"You 'onestly aren't going to pursue this?"

"You aren't givin' me much to work with," Sniper shot back bitterly. At the very least, he wasn't tired anymore.

"I 'ave given you everything you need. Even the silliest, hormonal, teenage girl could figure out just who I meant."

"Whot? They readin' this or somethin'?" Sniper rolled his eyes behind his aviators.

"If they were, you would make for a poor male lead."

"Well, I don' wanna be some nancy romance novel, anyway."

The RED Spy exhaled sharply through his rather large and crooked nose, before casually throwing words over his shoulder, "I 'ave tried."

"There ain't no one back there, snake."

"Isn't there?" the Spy said in an obviously suggestive tone.

"Nah."

"I 'ave no idea what you see in 'im," he said to the air behind the driver's seat again.

Sniper, meanwhile, had resolved not to look back and be made the laughing stock.

Spy happened to be ever-persistent, contrary to what others might have said about him, "You didn't 'appen to 'ear decloaking be'ind you on the beginning trip, perchance?

Sniper snorted, "That was you wasn' it?"

"Non. _I_," Spy placed so much emphasis on the "I" that it was almost painful, "'ave been in the passenger's seat the entire time.

"I ain't stupid."

"All evidence to the contrary."

Another rush of cloaking met Sniper's trained ears, "Fine, go ahead, an' sulk - see if I ca—"

"Boo," it was hardly more than an amused whisper, but it was enough to send the assassin's hair on end. Perhaps it didn't help matters that Sniper could feel warm breath tickling the back of his neck, so when he swerved dangerously close to the van's tipping point, it might have been understandable.

But as potentially dangerous as decloaking and romantic-advances-gone-unnoticed are, Soldier was in the worse situation.

"Hold schtill, zis vill only hurt for a moment."

And the Nazi-accent was back.


	11. Meet the BLU Medic

AN: I very much need to do further editing on this one, as I was crunched for time, but it seemed a shame not to upload it. Also: election day! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

There was blood everywhere. It was on the mail, the floor, in his mouth, and Soldier, from his position on his back, swore that there were even tiny specks on the ceiling.

Right now, he was biting on the handle of his beloved shovel and trying not to scream bloody murder, which was exactly what was happening.

There was a grunt from the Medic kneeling over his prone body, and then a large crack. There were suppressed screams of pain, as well, but Soldier swore that they weren't coming from him.

"Hush, Medic murmured distractedly.

Okay, so maybe they were from him, but it was a perfectly manly and normal response to having your inside slashed open with a rusty piece of metal.

And for once, Soldier's rationalizations were entirely correct, which isn't to say that they usually weren't usually correct. He wasn't compensating for normal human emotions, at all; Not in any way.

There was another crack, and Soldier's body squirmed violently for an entirely different reason than his body being dismantled by a mentally unsound ex-Nazi. Was it the mail around him that was twisting in and out of focus, or was he just dying?

"Oops. Zere goes anozzer."

"Anutther wat?" Soldier choked out.

"And it was such a nice rib-cage," Medic mumbled to no one in particular.

"Ri-caag?"

If Soldier had been a lesser man, he probably would have been screeching already, but as they say: the American was a trooper.

"Hm?" Medic acknowledged his patient for what felt like the first time, "Oh. Zey grow back; Nozzing to vorry about."

Soldier spayed out what sounded like a slew of curses from behind his shovel handle.

"Ja. Ja." To be quite honest, Medic had grown accustomed to Soldier's various temper tantrums. Twelve days of experimenting on someone without their consent can do that to a person.

"Herr RED Soldier?"

"Huck yoo."

"Vould you mind holding your rib-cage open a bit?"

"Noh! Huck. Yoo."

At this point the men outside were running out of doors to open, and Medic was running out of patience. It may also be necessary to retract the BLU Medic's policy of not using anesthesia as a bargaining point, but the circumstances, as they stood, were dire. And so, Medic's fun was ruined.

"Vould you do it for a hit of anesthetic?"

Soldier's body was screaming "yes", but the rest of him was screaming "Nazi!"

"Noh!"

Medic winced at Soldier's rather hysterical volume and quietly put a blood-covered finger to his lips.

"Two hits of anesthetic?"

"Nu-uhn."

"Alright, three?"

"Nu-uhn."

Medic was getting more and more irritated as the amount of anesthetic steadily went up. It can be assumed that this was a correlative relationship.

"Four hits of anesthetic: This is my final offer."

Soldier's body won.

"Iht'cha deel." Then something occurred to Soldier that probably should have taken place a minute ago: "Wat ahnesetic?"

Medic chuckled nervously in response.

"Wat ahnesetic?" This time Soldier was more urgent.

"Hush," Medic hissed at him.

The doctor turned to begin the process of ripping postal tape off of his Man-Co. package.

"Vould you like to hear a story to take your mind off of it?"

Medic was beginning to feel a bit generous because of his improved mood.

There were hacking sounds behind him, and then suppressed squeals of pain. He took this as a yes.

As Medic pulled the Quick-Fix from the box and tossed the instructions aside - for whom really needs those? – he pulled the Quick-Fix's handle back for the feeling equivalent to four doses of morphine, minus the overdosing, passing-out, and actual healing the gun was supposed to provide. Only when the device was secured between his legs, the healing ray was beamed onto the Soldier, and the reluctant patient relaxed did Medic start:

"Once, there vas a doc—oh. You can remove the shovel now."

Soldier spat the shovel out and nearly cried tears of joy when the pain dulled from – literally – gut-wrenching to absolutely nothing.

"As I vas saying: there—"

"This isn't some Nazi-story; is it?"

Medic looked up from re-prying Soldier's rib-cage open to face a rather angry-looking Soldier craning his neck up at him.

"Ah-vell. No."

Soldier's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but his helmet was in the way, so the effect was lost.

"Proceed."

"Hold your rib-cage open, bitte."

Soldier ground his teeth together, and groped for his rib-cage. The Nazi seemed to be in a rare mood, so he decided not to push his luck or general well-being. His body shook with a new sense of pain and queasiness as he pulled his very own rib-cage open.

Medic tsked, "Not so wide; you'll hurt yourself."

Soldier made a sound of indignation.

"What?"

He received no response.

"Anyvays," Medic restarted his story as he dove in for the Soldier's heart, "There vas a doctor, about thirty-two at the time, who had been forced to retire from the army-"

Soldier took an interest in this.

"That's horrible," he whispered, in sympathy for the young doctor.

Medic smiled almost sadly behind his sadistic grin, "Ja, it is, but if you wait, it gets better."

As Medic and Soldier were defiling mail, the Sniper was considering spilling some blood himself, but he still didn't get it.

"'E still doesn't get it," the RED Spy muttered to his BLU counterpart and squinted in the brightening light bathing the dusty road on which they stood.

"Per'aps it's best that 'e does not." The BLU's lips twitched amusedly at the "he" in question. "If this is how 'e fusses over 'is van, imagine 'ow 'e would react to me."

"I can hear you, you bloody wusses!"

Sniper had kicked all occupants out of his precious camper after it had nearly flipped over and was now covered in a few jars' worth of jarate. So he now examined his small home for any other damages.

The BLU Spy sighed, "Is your van alright, Monsieur Sniper?"

"No, it bloody fuckin' isn't! I'm stuck in the desert with you two bloody idiots, and there's piss all over the back of my camper! You think I'm alroight?" Sniper kicked sand in a display of his masculine aggression and dominance before stalking around to the other side of the van. It was silently agreed to wait until the Aussie was completely settled.

After a few minutes, the BLU Spy could stand it no longer.

"'Ow are we getting back to the base?"

Sniper grunted and poked his head around the back of the van.

"Whot?"

Spy gestured to the van again, while the RED watched in anticipation of the answer.

"Whot'd'ya mean? She should still run fine."

Sniper patted the side of his house appreciatively, and then hopped into the driver's seat.

The cigarette the BLU Spy had been smoking fell from his lips as his mouth fell open.

"You cannot be serious."

Sniper poked his head through the open driver's window and sniffed.

"Well, she smells a bit for the worse, but that isn't no reason not t'drive her back."

"I claim the passenger seat," announced the RED Spy.

The BLU Spy was the only one left outside.

Sniper started the van.

"Attendez!" the Spy yelled, striding around to Sniper's side.

"Yeah?" Sniper's eyebrows raised above his sunglasses.

"You—you."

"Me, whot?"

"You do not actually expect me to sit in that?" Spy sputtered.

"Mmm, well," Sniper contemplated this, "It isn' loike it's all over – just here an' there is all."

"Non," Spy sounded vehement.

Sniper scratched his head under his hat.

"Jus' share with him then," Sniper's thumb jerked in the RED Spy's direction, "Ya French nances don't moind all that touchy, feely stuff, roight?"

"Non, but—"

"Bloody good then."

"But—aren't you feeling tired?"

"Whot? A bit, but—"

"Ah, Monsieur Sniper, I cannot let a fellow professional drive under such circumstances."

"But I—"

"Non, please, I _insist_."

The BLU Spy was in the zone.

"I believe that they say driving without sleep is the same as driving under intoxication."

The BLU pulled the driver's door open and salvaged his poor confused teammate from the car. From there, the shocked Sniper's arm was thrown around the Spy's shoulder and was carefully carried around to the passenger-side as though he'd been desperately injured.

"It is for your own good, Monsieur Mundy—"

"Hold up. How is it that you know my name?" Sniper stuttered out, as the Spy pulled open the passenger's door.

"I am simply a good Spy, Monsieur."

The RED Spy rolled his eyes and added to the conversation: "Bein sûr, it 'as absolutely nothing to do with personal interest."

"Quite right," the BLU Spy responded and pushed the still oblivious Sniper right onto the RED Spy's lap.

"I will drive for you, and take very good care of your 'ouse."

Spy shut the door and began to walk back around to the driver's side. It would only be a couple of seconds. Spy ticked them off in his head.

"Loike bloody hell!" the Australian roared, "Geroffe me, you wanker—"

"Excuse-moi, but I believe that you are on me!"

"Spoi!"

But even as Sniper began to realize that something very French and very gay was going on, Medic and Soldier had already been discovered, and they weren't going down without a fight.

But even before that, there had been Soldier's impromptu operation to worry about, which had gone fairly smooth in regards to the two mercenaries' relationship. By using the word "smooth", it meant that Soldier was holding back chuckles in regard to Medic's story.

Medic wasn't that funny; it was just the story about this doctor. What else would it be?

Comfortable? Hell, he was lying on his back with his insides slashed open in the middle of a dimly lit train car; how comfortable was that? But as it turned out, it could be very forgettable. Again: nothing to do with Medic, himself, just his story.

"Vait, vait, vait. I told you it would get better," Medic's whisper shook. Medic had to hold back a few chuckles of his own – granted that they held a more psychotic connotation than Soldier's. "When the patient voke up, his skeleton was missing, and the doctor was never heard from again."

Soldier practically stuffed his fist into his mouth to stop the sound, while Medic's body shook silently – for he lacked the smooth polished finesse of delivery that the Spy possessed.

"Ah," Medic breathed in to steady himself and clutched Soldier's removed red-glowing heart more securely, "Anyway, that's how I lost my medical license. Heh."

Soldier's smile dropped immediately. "What?" he hissed.

"Ah—"

Another door screeched open painfully close to the mercenaries' hiding place, so Medic was spared from having to answer.

"Ah—anyway," he said – recalling his patient's attention, "it seems that your heart withstood this voltage the first time you had this operation – seeing as it is still here," Medic explained while tapping the RED Übermeter

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"Because of progress, my American."

With this, Medic pulled the RED Übermeter free and tossed it aside – causing the heart to sputter and dull the red Übercharge glow to a faint shimmer. For once, he was thankful that Mann Co. was considerate enough to send nine spares of the BLU counterparts with the purchase, because he'd actually need one – this once. The BLU meter was quickly installed through the puncture holes left by the RED one.

"Um—Fritz?"

Medic looked up from his handiwork, "Ja?"

"What happens if my heart doesn't make it through the surgery?"

_Well you'd die_, is what Medic thought, but he didn't voice it. He dodged the question.

"Do you take any heart medications?"

"Yeah."

_Now he chooses to mention this_, but once again, Medic didn't voice it.

"What kind?"  
"I don't know. They were my roommate's."

"You took your roommate's heart medication?"

"If you're gonna continue with the dumb questions-"

"I—" Medic figured he wasn't in a position to lecture about unsafe medical practices. "Forget it."

_The real mystery here is: How he even has a person willing to be his roommate._

The door two cars down from theirs screeched open and paniced voices were vaguely heard.

Soldier motioned for Medic to hurry up.

"Where was I? Ah, there we go," he muttered as the heart was shoved into the blue-colored beam. "Come on, come on," Medic demanded and then shook with a silent burst of maniacal laughter. It seemed to be an almost natural reflex.

Soldier, on-the-other-hand, just looked worried as _his _heart palpated faster and faster and glowed with a brighter and brighter blue.

Soon the glow calmed to the same brightness of the underlying red sheen, and the two looked on to see a neither red nor blue but vivid violet.

It was a wonder that the men outside never noticed all the glowing, seeing as it had illuminated the darkened car significantly. Perhaps it was because they were American.

"Oh," Medic sounded as though he were expecting an explosion of some kind, "that looks good."

The heart was promptly dropped into the rather large hole in Soldier's torso.

"Very nice there."

"More Medi-Gun?" Soldier had begun to turn a faint shade of green at the memory of his last surgery.

"Soon. Your rib-cage, again, please?"

Soldier steeled himself and pulled.

Medic, again, seemed as though he'd expected something else to happen when Soldier's heart slid back into place without incident.

"Sehr gut." And with this, Medic took the Quick-Fix he'd been tightly gripping between his legs into his arms and pulled the lever back as far as it allowed. Soldier felt very thankful for this as his skin flowed back together, and his ribs began to grow back – true to Medic's word. For some other unexplainable reason, it also repaired Soldier's clothes, to which, Medic merely shrugged.

Soldier inhaled and sat up, "So what's gonna happen now?"

The door screeched open.

"Sonouva—" exclaimed the traumatized people, merely doing their jobs.

Medic hastily pulled the dazed Soldier up by his wrist and re-trained his beam onto him.

Medic chuckled what Soldier would later refer to as his "Nazi" laugh –a word was used when everything else about him that – rightfully – frightened Soldier.

"Let's go practice medicine."


	12. Let's Hijack a Train!

AN: Guess who's still alive and just being a dick. I guess a sorry wouldn't fix it, huh? But if you actually plan on reading this and haven't lost interest, then I want to give you a big Danke (actually, thank KingdomOfThomond for getting on my back a bit and betaing for me).

Also, I'm going back to the Sniper/Sp(y) (ies) chapter and editing out the romance because 1) I realize that I suck at it and 2) I don't have anywhere to go with it other than making Sniper more and more flustered. You can go back and re-read them once I revise them if you _really_ want to, but it doesn't change the plot any.

All of your questions in the reviews will now be answered in the AN sections rather than through PMs. Let's make everybody happy, ja?

* * *

Unless it's never happened to you before, everyone knows exactly how embarrassing it is when you're stuck with the job that nobody else wants just because nobody else wants it. It had been made pretty clear that the reason Officer Fife was wasting any time down at the train station was only because someone else – or everybody else, for that matter - couldn't take a terrorist threat seriously. So sure, let's give it to the rookie; why not?

The officer sighed and wrapped his hand around what felt like the thousandth door that night. The train's engineer stood warily behind him wringing his hands like a worried house wife. The officer sighed – not expecting anything besides piles of mail and certainly not two fully grown men, some sort of alien technology, and what seemed to be about ten gallons of blood (because that was a certainly realistic conclusion to make).

So Fife's terrorist threat seemed all the more serious as he pulled the car door open with a grating screech.

"Sonouva-" came the exclamation from the officer. The engineer could barely hear him. He was too busy vomiting up what felt like the majority of his organs. The Soldier probably would have called him a hippy for such hippy-like actions had he noticed. As of now he was too busy taking it out on Medic.

"You're sure this is gonna work?"

"I have no idea!"

"What?"

Soldier looked incredulously at the Medic behind him – whose sadistic smile promptly dropped.

"Was?"

"This entire thing was _your_ idea!"

Medic huffed and scrunched up his nose to readjust his slipping glasses.

"Ja, vell, it's your fighting style; I'm just the Medic," he replied equally as huffy.

"You gave me a negatory on the lethal force!"

"E-excuse me," interrupted the rookie police officer in an attempt to save face after just gaping at the pair during this entire argument, "I'm going to have to arrest—"

The rookie – who was now having a horrible first day on-job – remembered his gun and fumbled for it in its holster.

The mercenaries – who'd been ignoring him – both raised their eye-brows in a way that conveyed just how unimpressed they were.

"Ah—ja. Just—ah—hit him vith your shovel or something else; just don't shoot him."

The rookie felt as though he were about to break down in tears, as he finally pulled his gun and aimed it, spectacularly poorly, at Soldier – who was both glowing and aiming a rocket launcher that made his pistol feel worthless; just like he was.

Soldier quickly re-slung the rocket launcher behind his back and picked his bloody shovel up, off the floor.

"S-sir? I-I-I'm going to," bile started to rise into Officer Fife's throat again, "a-ask you to d-drop your weapon."

"I'm real sorry about this, son."

With this, Soldier began to stride forward with his shovel held in a striking position and his face twisted apologetically in anticipation of his fellow American brethren's fate.

Medic, however, quirked his eyebrows at the man as one corner of his mouth tugged upwards. He was feeling fantastic. Amzing. Wunderbar. He felt in power once again with the unfamiliar metal of the Quick-Fix vibrating under his bare hands and the blue glow that slowly transfused into violet around the RED Soldier's torso.

Upon seeing the Medic's facial expression coupled with Soldier's advance, the traumatized rookie blindly shot at Soldier – who seemed unfazed by the bullet. Officer Fife began to cry in earnest when the wound sealed itself, and the bullet popped right back out of Soldier's gut.

As any good mercenary, of RED and BLU, will tell you: Always shoot the Medic first; disregard that, and there's no one left to blame but yourself.

Soldier's shovel whammed into the officer's face.

Something slammed into Medic with similar force as the unwitting man crumpled: They didn't know. Nobody knew. Nobody knew to "shoot the Medic" or anything-else of that nature. There were unlimited possibilities and boundless horizons; it was the Third-Reich all over again.

"You're a horrible excuse for a Medic!"  
Medic jerked the thoughts out of his head.

"Excuse me?"

"I've been yelling at you to get a move on for a whole minute now!"

Something else drew Medic's attention that should have a minute ago. Maybe it was because he was German.

"Why is the train's driver wailing on the ground like you've shot him the right leg?"

"'Cause I did."

"RED Soldier, I said—"

"Well, you sure as hell weren't going anywhere, so I had to stay behind!"

"You waited for me?"

The man wailed louder.

"Take your lumps like a man!" Soldier bellowed at the injured man him before continuing. "Isn' that what you're supposed to do?"

"Yes, but—"

"That doesn't require an answer, Kraut. C'mon. We've got a train to hijack."

"Help! They're hijacking the train!"

"Oh, still sein! Nobody within a twenty-kilometer radius can hear you, dummkopf."

Medic had managed to reduce two grown men to tears within two minutes.

The odd glowing pair strode rather cockily around the engineer as though they'd accomplished something other than injuring civilians; figuring out the train's controls was an entirely different matter.

"D'ya know how to run this hunk of metal?" Soldier – who already looked ready to stick his shovel through the panel – asked.

"Put that down," Medic hissed in regard to Soldier's poised entrenching tool.

"Well, if you're so smart, figure it out!"

"Fine."

Medic proceeded to march right back out of the train, when he came back he had his Quick Fix's nozzle re-attached to its holder on the Medipack and a very much traumatized man in tow. Yes, wrapped around the German was none other than the train's engineer. Soldier, for once, didn't say anything – if only because someone else was taking over his job of Nazi-baiting. The engineer apparently was recovering somewhat from his initial shock, and had Medic not been both a veteran and a mercenary he probably would have succumbed to the man's violent squirming. And then there were the steroids, but that was a different matter entirely.

"You're only injuring yourself further, Herr," Medic sounded a bit exasperated (considering the day he was having, this wasn't too much of a surprise) as he watched the engineer's blood drip steadily onto the floor. The man responded with a desperate and muffled sound from behind Medic's hand. No doubt he would try biting in about a minute. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, but as Medic didn't have his gloves on… well. That could prove problematic for the German about thirty seconds, but at the same time, Medic didn't think that he could handle two half-crazy Americans wailing at him at once. Decisions, decisions.

Then again, solutions weren't too hard to come by either. Medic aimed a sharp kick to the engineer's injured leg, and there was a stifled yelp of severe pain.

"Hey-!" There was much pain felt for Soldier's American brother.

"Nein!" Medic aimed to Soldier at the first sign of his protest; he'd had enough bullshit for the day; this was his turn to boss people around and yell various irrational things that may or may not be semi-sadistic. "As for you," he growled to the unfortunate man he was still supporting, "Listen to me and nothing bad will come of this, ja?" The tone of voice he was using sounded something like "Ja, you will listen, or I will make many bad things come of this."

Medic removed his hand from the engineer's mouth to let him speak. "Wha-what'd ya want from me?" A smile stretched across Medic's face in a "sehr wohl" kind of way.

"My friend, there," Soldier scoffed a little as Medic said this, "and I need to get somewhere, if you vould be so kind, Herr?"

"I—I."

"Vell?" Medic purred a little dangerously.

"Do your country a favor, son," Soldier added in his two cents to the pot of Let's Coerce Civilians Into Joining Our Terrorist Plot.

At this the engineer glanced over to Soldier and the small arsenal he was carrying registered in his brain. "Wh-where to?"

"The nearest facility that serves ribs." Medic shot the RED a pretty intense glare. "What?" Soldier sneered back. "You got something to say Kraut?"

"Ja, actually, since I seem to be the voice of reason between us."

"And I'm the voice of freedom and justice," Soldier retorted with a magnificent puffing of his chest.

Medic blinked a couple of times, but didn't otherwise respond to that.

"Yes, so," returning to the problem at hand, "If my memory serves to be correct, then we have four possible options for a destination: the Thunder Mountains, Badwater Basin, the town of Teufort, and ah—" Medic fished for the correct name for a while. Damn these mercenaries and all of their slang. "Vell, I know it as Dustbowl. Do—?" He stopped as he watched the engineer rapidly shake his head. "Oh, vell never mind that then," he said waving an unoccupied hand (the other was still holding fast to the engineer). "Three options then."

"It's up to you two; I guess," the man looked faintly nauseated.

"Teufort," Soldier blurted.

"**I** personally prefer the mountains myself," he said with a pointed glare at Soldier, "As for you, Herr, get this train started if you can. I'm sure that leg vill hold for a while longer. We'll let you know when we've come to a decision." With that, Medic let go and helped him steady himself – none too gently it may be worth noting.

Soldier rolled his eyes as soon as the engineer had dragged himself fearfully to the cab. Medic did not see this – all credit to his helmet. "Yeah, but I know people in Teufort. People that can get us suitable shelter, and sour cream, and ribs, and get us back to base. Maybe not get us back to base," he said rather suggestively.

"Oh, yes," Medic drawled, "Surely nozzing would be more enjoyable than spending an extended amount of time with you."  
"Good point," Soldier mumbled to his feet – fingers cupped around his chin.

"Anyhow, Teufort is the longest point from here, while Thunder Mountain is the closest, and the least populated may I add."

"You ever gone hiking Kraut?"

Sniper came to Medic's mind almost immediately and a soft smile to his lips, "Yes." He'd have to thank the man someday, for all of those trips…

"Gone hiking in the mountains?"

"Well, no."

"Then now isn't the time to start. Don't even get me started on camping **without any sufficient equipment of any kind.**" Soldier gave the Medic a once over. "Funny, I've seen more hippies that look more outdoorsy than you."

Medic really didn't have a response to that. He may not have wanted to admit that he looked more like someone's grandfather, than a mercenary, but the sad truth of that fact was that… well, he did. The glasses certainly weren't giving him any points in that regard.

He was spared from giving an answer by the sudden shudder of the train coming to life. He did however sigh exasperatedly and call over to the engineer:

"I think we've come to a decision."

* * *

AN: I have another Reader's Choice for ya: Where are they going to? However, I'm limiting you to the maps listed (including Dustbowl) by Medic. Don't worry, this story (and myself) are going to be picking up pace. Shenanigans of an outrageously illegal nature shall ensue soon!

You may skip this part.

Questions previously asked:

Q: The only thing I might criticize is how the tone of the story fluctuates between sarcastic comedy and serious drama from chapter to chapter, sometimes within the same chapter, so I'm at times unsure where you are going with this, especially by adding a (still alive) wife to Medic?

A: _**SPOILER**_: wiki (InsertDotHere) teamfortress (InsertDotHere) com/w/images/5/50/Demoman_dominationmedic03 (InsertDotHere) wav

Q: Why would Mann Co. send Medic a Quick-Fix, if the Quick-Fix is the very first, prototype Medigun that the Medic built himself?

A: You know, I kept wondering why the Quick-Fix medigun was introduced into the story, and today the coin finally dropped. *facepalm* Soldier with rocket-launcher Medic with Quick-Fix ability to do two-person rocketjumps without need for all the touchy-feely stuff that would only make Soldier hot and bothered. ;-)

Q: So, in your story canon's continuity is it only the BLU Medic who is married?

A: Yup.

Q: So... does this mean that the soldier is pretty much a BLU now?

A: *snerk* *snerk* I think he's in more of an in-between stage. A gray area, if you will - or er- a V.I.O.L.E.T. area.


End file.
